Dead Pool 13th November 2016

Good afternoon all, welcome to yet more deadly hilarity! Again, no points to award, we’re not doing so well considering celebrities are dying like flies this year!!!

So, let’s talk about next year! You now have seven weeks remaining to research and submit your new list. Sounds like a lot of time, but remember how long it took you to get around to watching that box set? Yeah…

Look Who You Could Have Had:

• Leonard Cohen, 82, Canadian singer-songwriter (“Suzanne“, “Hallelujah“, “First We Take Manhattan“), poet and novelist (Let Us Compare Mythologies, Beautiful Losers).
• Julie Gregg, 79, American actress (The Godfather, The Happy Time, Batman), cancer.
• Sir Jimmy Young, 95, British radio personality (Radio 2) and singer (“Unchained Melody“, “The Man from Laramie“).
• Robert Vaughn, 83, American actor (The Man from U.N.C.L.E., The Magnificent Seven, Hustle), acute leukemia.

In Other News

Jill Gascoine is in the advanced stages of Alzheimer’s, her heartbroken husband has revealed. Actor Alfred Molina said his wife’s prognosis was “bleak” and that she was in latter stages of the disease. Gascoine, 79, is best known for her role ITV’s The Gentle Touch  which ran from 1980 to 1984 and, at its height, was regularly watched by 18 million viewers. The actress also played a recurring role in the hugely popular 1970s drama The Onedin Line. Molina, who is 16 years younger than his wife, told The Radio Times: “Not everyone can approach Alzheimer’s with the bravery that Terry Pratchett showed.” Molina added: “Every Alzheimer’s case is unique unto itself – the only thing that unites them all is the outcome is always the same. Ultimately, you end up on the same path.”

Joyce Frost, who appeared as the “Old Woman” on BBC Radio 2’s Steve Wright in the Afternoon, has died. Frost, from Dagenham, east London, died “peacefully and pain free” last week, Wright announced on his Wednesday show. The Old Woman, a regular on the show, discussed the news and once presented the “factoids” slot – listing quirky facts – with Hollywood star Will Smith. Wright praised her as “a complete natural on the air” and said she had been a “lovely, lovely person”. On Wednesday’s show, Wright told  listeners she had been “very opinionated and witty” and always cheeky, funny and charming. He added: “It’s a sad loss, thank you for being the Old Woman with us Joyce and we’ll miss you very much.”

Sir Bruce Forsyth’s wife has thanked the public for the support the couple have received  during the entertainer’s recuperation from surgery. “We’ve had so many wonderful letters and phone calls and good wishes for him,” said Lady Wilnelia Forsyth. Earlier this month, Lady Forsyth said the 88-year-old was still having “a bit of a problem moving”. “He’s in incredible shape mentally but he gets very tired,” she said. Speaking on ITV on Thursday, Lady Forsyth said it had been “very hard” for her husband to be convalescing, having been “active until just recently”. Sir Bruce has not been seen in public of late, having been too frail to attend the funerals of close friends Ronnie Corbett and Sir Terry Wogan. “With a little bit of luck he should be back,” said the 1975 Miss World winner. “I don’t expect him to go tap dancing, he’s not doing that at home, but he loves show business.” Sir Bruce underwent keyhole surgery last year after doctors discovered he had two aneurysms following a fall at his Surrey home.

On This Day

• 1002 – English king Æthelred II orders the killing of all Danes in England, known today as the St. Brice’s Day massacre.
• 1841 – James Braid first sees a demonstration of animal magnetism, which leads to his study of the subject he eventually calls hypnotism.
• 1947 – The Soviet Union completes development of the AK-47, one of the first proper assault rifles.
• 1974 – Ronald DeFeo, Jr. murders his entire family in Amityville, Long Island in the house that would become known as The Amityville Horror.

Deaths

• 1770 – George Grenville, English lawyer and politician, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom (b. 1712)
• 1903 – Camille Pissarro, Virgin Islander-French painter (b. 1830)
• 1973 – Lila Lee, American actress (b. 1901)
• 1974 – Karen Silkwood, American technician and activist (b. 1946)

Last Week’s Birthdays

Sally Field (70), Ethan Hawke (46), Thandie Newton (44), Rebecca Romijn (44), Emma Stone (28), Maria Shriver (61), Joni Mitchell (73), Tinie Tempah (28), Gretchen Mol (44), Matthew Rhys (42), Tara Reid (41), Jack Osbourne (31), Gordon Ramsay (50), Lou Ferrigno (65), Tracy Morgan (48), Stanley Tucci (56), Demi Moore (54), Calista Flockhart (52), Leonardo DiCaprio (42), Wallace Shawn (73), Neil Young (71), Ryan Gosling (36) and Ann Hathaway (34).

The Last Word

“There is no God but Allah and Muhammad is God’s messenger.”

• Saddam Hussein December 30, 2006 – Executed by hanging

Next week peeps!

13th November 2016 | Categories: 2016 | Leave A Comment »

Dead Pool 6th November 2016

Good afternoon everyone, another edition hits the press, alas no points and some very obscure deaths. With eight weeks to go, we’re beginning to wonder if we peaked too early on in the year.

Look Who You Could Have Had:

• Curly Putman, 85, American songwriter (“Green, Green Grass of Home“, “D-I-V-O-R-C-E“, “He Stopped Loving Her Today“).
• Max Alexander, 63, American comedian and actor (Forgetting Sarah Marshall, Trainwreck, Paul Blart: Mall Cop 2), head and neck cancer.
• Kay Starr, 94, American singer (“Wheel of Fortune“, “The Rock and Roll Waltz“), complications from Alzheimer’s disease. 
• John Carson, 89, English actor (Doomsday, Captain Kronos – Vampire Hunter, Doctor Who)

In Other News

US actor Val Kilmer has denied he has cancer, following Michael Douglas’s claim that his former co-star is ill. “I love Michael Douglas but he is misinformed,” the Top Gun and  Batman Forever star wrote in a Facebook post. Douglas claimed that Kilmer was “dealing with” throat cancer – the same ailment that Douglas was diagnosed with in 2010. Kilmer, however, said he was “rehabbing steadily” from “a swollen tongue” and had “no cancer whatsoever”. “The last time I spoke to [Douglas] was almost two years ago, when I asked him for a referral for a specialist to get a diagnosis for a lump in my throat,” wrote the 56-year-old. “I ended up using a team at UCLA and have no cancer whatsoever,” he continued. Following Douglas’s comments, it was reported that he had been reluctant to seek medical treatment due to his Christian Science faith. He added: “Some fans have mistakenly thought my silence about my personal issues meant that somehow I wasn’t being responsible to my health, because of my reliance on prayer and Love. “Nothing could be further from the truth… Being healthy and having the respect of my peers and love from my family, friends, peers and fans is a DAILY source of inspiration, for which I am so grateful.” Kilmer’s post follows a number of Facebook messages last year in which he assured fans he had “no tumour or infection of any kind”.

US whistleblower Chelsea Manning attempted suicide for a second time last month, her lawyers say. Her legal team declined to give details but said prison conditions contributed to her fragile mental state. Manning was sentenced to 14 days in solitary confinement in September for charges relating to her attempt to kill herself in July. The transgender army private, born Bradley Manning, is serving a 35-year sentence for espionage. In July, the former intelligence analyst attempted to take her own life after what lawyers said was the Army’s refusal to provide appropriate health care. She later went on hunger strike which ended after the military agreed to provide her with gender dysphoria treatment. Her lawyer Chase Strangio described her treatment in a letter, quoted by the AP news agency, as “demoralising”, adding that it was an “assault on her health and humanity”. “She has repeatedly been punished for trying to survive and now is being repeatedly punished for trying to die,” wrote Mr Strangio.

David Van Day, a former member of pop duo Dollar, is “doing fine” after suffering a heart attack, his spokesman has said. The singer was taken to a hospital in Essex over the weekend after suffering chronic chest pain for several days. The 59-year-old was later moved to St Bartholomew’s Hospital in central London for treatment. A representative told the BBC that Van Day has “had a stent fitted to a main artery”. Van Day’s spokesman said the singer “should be leaving for home soon” following the operation but will need to rest for the next month. He tweeted: “Thanks for all the kind and positive messages I’ve had today. I’m hoping to make a speedy recovery.” Van Day, together with Canadian-born Thereza Bazar, made up Dollar – a pop duo who had a string of chart hits in the late 1970s and 1980s, including Mirror Mirror and Give Me Back My Heart.

Singer Michael Buble and his wife Luisana Lopilato have said they are “devastated” after their three-year-old son Noah was diagnosed with cancer. The Canadian star broke the news on his Facebook page. He did not give any details about the type of cancer although we strongly believe its cancer of the ear. He said he and Lopilato, a model and actress, were giving up work commitments to concentrate on “helping Noah get well”. His statement said: “We are devastated about the recent cancer diagnosis of our oldest son Noah who is currently undergoing treatment in the US. “We have always been very vocal about the importance of family and the love we have for our children. Luisana  and I have put our careers on hold in order to devote all our time and attention to helping Noah get well. “At this difficult time, we ask only for your prayers and respect for our privacy.” Let’s hope the little nipper gets better, the burden of bing Buble’s son is enough for one child to bear.

And finally, a quick mention to Herbert Howe, who died last month after a brave battle with cancer. Alas he wasn’t famous enough for our needs, i.e. no Wiki page or a listing on the deaths page, but I’m sure you’ll recognise those teeth!

On This Day

• 1944 – Plutonium is first produced at the Hanford Atomic Facility and subsequently used in the Fat Man atomic bomb dropped on Nagasaki, Japan.
• 2012 – Tammy Baldwin becomes the first openly gay politician to be elected to the United States Senate.

Deaths

• 1893 – Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, Russian composer and critic (b. 1840)
• 2004 – Fred Dibnah, English engineer and television host (b. 1938)
• 2012 – Clive Dunn, English actor (b. 1920)

Last Week’s Birthdays

Henry Winkler (71), Peter Jackson (55), Vanilla Ice (49), Anthony Kiedis (54), Toni Collette (44), Jenny McCarthy (44), K.D. Lang (55), David Schwimmer (50), Rosanne Barr (64), Dolph Lundgren (59), Anna Wintour (67), Loretta Swit (79), Ralph Macchio (55), Matthew McConaughey (47), Laura Bush (70), Louise Redknapp (42), Robert Patrick (58), Bryan Adams (57), Tilda Swinton (56), Tatum O’Neal (53), Sam Rockwell (48) and Famke Janssen  (52).

The Last Word

Adolf Hitler – April 29th 1945 – Hitler committed suicide, with is wife Eva Braun, in an underground bunker in Berlin. The last lines of Hitler’s suicide note reads as follows:

“I myself and my wife – in order to escape the disgrace of deposition or capitulation – choose death. It is our wish to be burnt immediately on the spot where I have carried out the greatest part of my daily work in the course of a twelve years’ service to my people.”

Next week peeps.

6th November 2016 | Categories: 2016 | Leave A Comment »

Dead Pool 30th October 2016

Another week passes and so do a few celebrities. Alas no points to award and with little over two months left to go things are still tight at the top of the leader board. Maybe some of you realise now how hard it is to have a successful list. A lot of research and time can be spent finalising a winning list, so as I said, with little over two months to go, get yourself researching for 2017!

Look Who You Could Have Had:

• Sheri S. Tepper, 87, American science fiction author.
• Pete Burns, 57, English singer-songwriter (Dead or Alive), cardiac arrest.
• Jimmy Perry, 93, English actor and screenwriter (Dad’s Army, It Ain’t Half Hot Mum, Hi-de-Hi!).
• Bobby Vee, 73, American pop singer (“Rubber Ball“, “Take Good Care of My Baby“, “The Night Has a Thousand Eyes“) and actor, Alzheimer’s disease.
• Takahito, Prince Mikasa, 100, Japanese royal, cardiac arrest.

 In Other News

Rick Parfitt has quit Status Quo after 50 years following his recent heart attack. The 68-year-old ‘died’ for several minutes after suffering a huge heart attack in Turkey in June, and it’s now been confirmed that he has stopped touring on health grounds. The Rocking All Over The World guitarist will be replaced by Ritchie Malone for the band’s current arena tour. In an statement, the band said: ‘Status Quo today confirm that Rick Parfitt will indeed, as previously reported, step back from his regular touring commitments with the band.  This is for reasons of health, following his recent heart attack. ‘Status Quo would, however, like to make it completely clear that – contrary to some inaccurate reports this week – Rick’s connection with and within the band of course remains intact and that he will continue to be involved with future non-touring commercial activities of the band.’ In an interview with Classic Rock, he said: ‘I do wish Richie Malone all the best. He’s a fucking good little player and it must be all of his dreams come true.’

Bad news if you’re a Catholic, the ashes of the cremated cannot be kept at home, scattered or divided among family members, the Vatican has announced in new guidelines. The two-page instruction by the Vatican’s department on doctrine said ashes of the dead must be kept in “sacred places” such as cemeteries. It also stressed that the Roman Catholic Church still preferred burials over cremations. The Vatican allowed cremation in 1963 but has always frowned on the practice, they much rather you rot instead. The Vatican said it was issuing the new guidelines to counter “new ideas contrary to the Church’s faith”. The guidelines reiterated that Catholics who chose to be cremated “for reasons contrary to the Christian faith” must be denied a Christian funeral. Nice bunch of people these Catholics.

And finally, in what can be classed as a Darwinian moment, a US college student has crashed into a police car while taking a topless selfie behind the wheel, say officials. Miranda Rader, 19, rear-ended the patrol vehicle while sending nude photos to her boyfriend through the social media app Snapchat. The accident on Wednesday in Bryan, about 100 miles (160km) north of Houston, caused the airbag to deploy. The Texas A&M University student also had an open bottle of wine in a cup holder by her, according to police. The officer whose car had been hit approached Ms Rader to find she had an “unclasped brassiere” and was trying to put on her blouse. The arresting officer wrote in an affidavit: “I asked her why she was not dressed while driving and she stated she was taking a Snapchat photo to send to her boyfriend while she was at a red light.” She was arrested on suspicion of driving while intoxicated and released from jail on Thursday morning on a $2,000 (£1,600) bail bond. No one was injured in the incident.

On This Day

• 1925 – John Logie Baird creates Britain’s first television transmitter.
• 1938 – Orson Welles broadcasts his radio play of H. G. Wells‘s The War of the Worlds, causing anxiety in some of the audience in the United States.
• 1944 – Anne and Margot Frank are deported from Auschwitz to the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp, where they die from disease the following year, shortly before the end of WWII.
• 1960 – Michael Woodruff performs the first successful kidney transplant in the United Kingdom at the Edinburgh Royal Infirmary.
• 1961 – Nuclear testing: The Soviet Union detonates the hydrogen bomb Tsar Bomba over Novaya Zemlya; at 50 megatons of yield, it remains the largest explosive device ever detonated, nuclear or otherwise.
• 1974 – The Rumble in the Jungle boxing match between Muhammad Ali and George Foreman takes place in Kinshasa, Zaire. Ali wins by KO in the eighth round, regaining the title of World Heavyweight Champion and causing Foreman´s first professional defeat.

Deaths

• 1979 – Barnes Wallis, English scientist and engineer, invented the Bouncing bomb (b. 1887)
• 2015 – Al Molinaro, American actor (b. 1919)

Last Week’s Birthdays

Ang Lee (62), Weird Al Yankovic (57), Cat Deeley (40), Ryan Reynolds (40), Bill Wyman (80), F. Murray Abraham (77), Kevin Kline (69), Tila Tequila (35), Nancy Cartwright (59), Katy Perry (32), Wayne Rooney (31), Cary Elwes (54), Seth McFarlane (43), Jon Heder (39), Hillary Clinton (69), John Cleese (77), Simon LeBon (58), Kelly Osbourne (32), Charlie Daniels (80), Annie Potts (64), Julia Roberts (49), Joaquin Phoenix (42), Bill Gates (61), Kate Jackson (68), Dan Castellaneta (59), Rufus Sewell (49) and Winona Ryder (45).

The Last Word

“Yes, a bullet-proof vest.” – James W. Rodgers

• Asked if he has any last requests before facing a firing squad.

Next week peeps!

30th October 2016 | Categories: 2016 | Leave A Comment »

Dead Pool 23rd October 2016

Welcome to this weeks edition of the Dead Pool, where more renowned horses have died than famous people.

Look Who You Could Have Had:

• Junko Tabei, 77, Japanese mountaineer, peritoneal cancer
• Raine Spencer, Countess Spencer, 87, British socialite and politician.
• Steve Dillon, 53, English comic book artist (Preacher, The Punisher).
• Rough Quest, 30, British racehorse, winner of the 1996 Grand National.
• Moscow Flyer, 22, Irish racehorse.
• Monarchos, 18, American thoroughbred racehorse and stallion.

In Other News

Edward Furlong has been spotted looking unrecognisable more than two decades after he shot to fame and became one of Hollywood’s hottest pin-ups. The actor has been pictured at a shopping mall in Los Angeles this week, and he looks a world away from the fresh-faced young man who captured the hearts of fans across the globe. Edward, now 39, looked tired as he walked around the shops with a female friend. He wore a T-shirt, which appeared to be inside out, with frayed jeans and he kept his long hair off his face with a pair of Aviator-style sunglasses. The former movie star carried a plastic carrier bag and appeared preoccupied as he trudged around the mall. He shot to fame playing young John Connor in 1991 blockbuster Terminator 2: Judgment Day, and went on to become one of Tinseltown’s hottest properties. The actor landed roles in movies such as American Heart, American History X and Detroit Rock City, and cemented his place as a Hollywood heartthrob. His popularity waned after the 1990s and he has won less lucrative roles in recent years. Edward also suffered a slew of personal problems including a well-documented battle with drink and drug addiction. He has also served time in jail following numerous brushes with the law, and has been treated in rehab. Next years Maverick anyone?

The latest episode in the serial adventurer Leonardo DiCaprio’s continuous brush with death has been revealed. The Titanic actor ended up being saved by his friend the actor Edward Norton after his oxygen tank began leaking on a diving expedition in 2010. Leonardo found himself unable to breathe and had to share Norton’s tank. Now, we at Dead Pool Towers have never dived, but we assume that you have a visual regulator that tells you how much oxygen you have left, so DiCaprio nearly died of stupidity as he could have easily resurfaced if he knew what he was doing. The hapless DiCaprio also recounted his various near-misses before explaining earlier this year he has nearly died three times. The 41 year old’s list involves an emergency plane landing after he witnessed “the entire wing explode in a fireball,” a great white shark entering his cage in South Africa and his parachute becoming knotted during a skydive.

And finally, a man may have cooked and eaten parts of a police officer’s corpse after strangling him, a court has heard. Stefano Brizzi, 50, is accused of murdering PC Gordon Semple, who had served with the Metropolitan police for 30 years, on 1st April after inviting him round for drug-fuelled sex, as you do. Brizzi admits dismembering and disposing of the 59-year-old police officer’s body, but claims his death was an accident and denies murder. At the Old Bailey on Friday, the prosecutor Crispin Aylett QC said Semple’s DNA was recovered from Brizzi’s oven, a cooking pot and chopsticks found in the flat. Additionally, possible bite marks were found on a rib in the kitchen dustbin and a leg bone showed signs of heat damage, he said. “It could be seen that the handle of the oven was bloodstained. Inside the oven, there was a pool of fat and grease,” Aylett told the jury. “This was found to contain a DNA profile that matched that of Gordon Semple.” One can only assume he tried to make a pulled pork, perhaps a stir-fry.

On This Day

• 1707 – The first Parliament of Great Britain meets.
• 2002 – Moscow theater hostage crisis: Chechen terrorists seize the House of Culture theatre in Moscow and take approximately 700 theatre-goers hostage.
• 2012 – After 38 years, the world’s first teletext service (BBC‘s Ceefax) ceases broadcast due to Northern Ireland completing the digital switchover.

Deaths

• 1915 – W. G. Grace, English cricketer and physician (b. 1848)
• 1950 – Al Jolson, Lithuanian-American actor and singer (b. 1886)
• 1957 – Christian Dior, French fashion designer, founded Christian Dior S.A. (b. 1905)
• 1984 – Oskar Werner, Austrian-German actor (b. 1922)
• 2001 – Josh Kirby, English illustrator (b. 1928)
• 2014 – Alvin Stardust, English singer and actor (b. 1942)

Last Week’s Birthdays

Angela Lansbury (91), Suzanne Somers (70), Tim Robbins (58), Michael McKean (69), George Wendt (68), Eminem (44), Wyclef Jean (47), Jean-Claude Van Damme (56), Zac Efron (29), Martina Navratilova (60), Pam Dawber (65), John Lithgow (71), Evander Holyfield (54), Viggo Mortensen (58), Snoop Dogg (45), Dannii Minogue (45), Judge Judy (74), Carrie Fisher (60), Ken Watanabe (57), Christopher Lloyd (78), Catherine Deneuve (73) and Jesse Tyler Ferguson (41).

The Last Word

“I do not believe in my death.” – Salvador Dali (1904-1989)

Next week peeps!

23rd October 2016 | Categories: 2016 | Leave A Comment »

Dead Pool 16th October 2016

At last, after a long drought of  nothingness, we have points to award! Well done to Julia, Wombat and Mark for guessing that Thailand’s King Bhumibol Adulyadej would pass away this year, 62 points each, but Martin gets 162 for having him as a Cert, which also gives us a new points leader! Shockingly, we all missed out on Hilda Ogden, perhaps like me you thought she’d died years ago!

Look Who You Could Have Had:

• Gary Dubin, 57, American actor (The Partridge Family, The Aristocats, Diamonds Are Forever), bone cancer.
• Patricia Barry, 93, American actress (All My Children, The Guiding Light, Days of Our Lives).
• Robert Bateman, 80, American songwriter and record producer (“Please Mr. Postman“), heart attack.
• Bhumibol Adulyadej, 88, Thai monarch, King (since 1946), world’s longest-serving head of state.
• Jean Alexander, 90, English actress (Coronation Street, Last of the Summer Wine).

In Other News

The death of King Bhumibol Adulyadej of Thailand means Queen Elizabeth II has become the world’s longest-reigning living monarch. The Queen became monarch at the age of 25 on the death of her father King George VI on 6 February 1952. Now 90, she has reigned for 64 years, eight months and ten days, or considerably more than two thirds of her life. Before his death on Wednesday at the age of 88, the Thai king had chalked up more than 70 years and four months on the throne. The Queen has a comfortable margin over the next longest-serving monarch, the Sultan of Brunei. Hassanal Bolkiah can boast 49 years and twelve days on the throne of the tiny, oil-rich Asian state, having ascended the throne on 4th October 1967. The wealthy Sultan is a car enthusiast, reportedly owning a private collection of up to 5,000 luxury sports cars. Qaboos bin Said al-Said has been Sultan of Oman since 1970, when he overthrew his father in a coup, giving him 46 years, 2 months on the throne so far. Prince Charles, incidentally, holds a world record of his own – as the longest-waiting heir apparent, surpassing his great-great-grandfather Edward VII who waited for more than 59 years for Queen Victoria to die. Her impressive stint is dwarfed, however, by the reign of Sobhuza II of Swaziland, whose period on the throne, from 1899 to 1982, overlapped with both the reign of Queen Victoria and the premiership of Margaret Thatcher. Having sired around 210 children by 70 wives in that time, he had more than 1,000 grandchildren at the time of his death.

Singer Janet Jackson has officially confirmed she is expecting her first child, at the age of 50. Speculation about her pregnancy surfaced in April when she postponed her ‘Unbreakable’ tour, saying she wanted to focus on planning a family with her husband, Wissam al-Mana. She was recently spotted in London shopping for baby essentials. A source close to the Jackson family said: “She is super excited about her pregnancy and is doing extremely well. She actually feels very good about everything.” Janet Jackson is far from the only famous face to give birth later in life. Oscar-winning Halle Berry had her second child at 47, three years ago, and John Travolta’s wife Kelly Preston gave birth to her third child at 48.

A giant panda believed to have been the oldest ever kept in captivity has died at the age of 38, officials say. The death of Jia Jia, whose age in human terms was more than 100 years, was announced by the Hong Kong theme park where she lived. Her condition had worsened rapidly in recent weeks and she had lost her appetite, according to local reports. She was put down by vets at Ocean Park, where she had lived since 1999. A Hong Kong government spokesman thanked the park for providing Jia Jia with care and support and added that it was “saddened” by the news. Born in 1978 in the wild in Sichuan, China, Jia Jia was given to Hong Kong in 1999 to mark the semi-autonomous city’s handover by Britain two years earlier. Pandas normally live to around 20 years of age in the wild, and 25 in captivity.

And finally, a father has claimed his 25-year-old son was brutally murdered and eaten by inmates during a month-long riot at a Venezuelan prison. Juan Carlos Herrara told local media his son, Juan Carlos Herrera Jr, was stabbed, hanged, dismembered and then eaten at the Táchira Detention Center. Mr Herrara’s son was jailed in 2015 for robbery and had become caught up in the prison mutiny, which reportedly began on the 8th September when eight visitors and two guards were taken hostage over extreme overcrowding in the jail. According to reports, 350 men had been crammed into the  detention centre, which has a capacity of 120. Speaking to reporters on Monday, after a visit to the prison three days after the mutiny had subsided, Mr Herrara said: “One of those who was with him when he was murdered saw everything that happened. “My son and two others were taken by 40 people, stabbed, hanged to bleed, and then Dorancel butchered them to feed all detainees,” referring to the notorious Dorancel “people-eater” Vargas – jailed in 1999 for cannibalism. “The inmate with whom I spoke to told me that he was beaten with a hammer in order to force him to eat the remains of the two boys. “I beg you to give me at least one bone so we can bury him and relieve some of this pain.” An anonymous police source confirmed to the media that two inmates were missing following the riots.

On This Day

• 1793 – Marie Antoinette, widow of Louis XVI, is guillotined at the height of the French Revolution.
• 1834 – Much of the ancient structure of the Palace of Westminster in London burns to the ground.
• 1923 – The Walt Disney Company is founded by Walt Disney and his brother, Roy Disney.
• 1975 – Rahima Banu, a two-year-old girl from the village of Kuralia in Bangladesh, is the last known person to be infected with naturally occurring smallpox.
• 1984 – The Bill debuts on ITV, eventually becoming the longest-running police procedural in British television history.

Deaths

• 1793 – Marie Antoinette, Austrian wife of Louis XVI of France (b. 1755)
• 2001 – Etta Jones, American singer-songwriter (b. 1928)
• 2007 – Deborah Kerr, Scottish actress (b. 1921)

Last Week’s Birthdays

Tony Shalhoub (63), Scott Bakula (62), David Lee Roth (62), Joan Cusak (54), Jane Krakowski (48), Emily Deschanel (40), Daryl Hall (70), Stephen Moyer (47), Hugh Jackman (48), Paul Simon (75), Sacha Baron Cohen (45), Sammy Hagar (69), Roger Moore (89), Cliff Richard (76), Lori Petty (53), Steve Coogan (51), Ralph Loren (77), Dominic West (47), and Sarah Ferguson (57).

The Last Word

“Is it the Fourth?” – Thomas Jefferson, U.S. President, died. July 4th, 1826

Next week peeps!

16th October 2016 | Categories: 2016 | Leave A Comment »

Dead Pool 9th October 2016

Welcome all, another edition hits the press and again we  struggle to know who these celebrities are. In the case of one of our demises, this quote was rather apt. “Rod Temperton is proof that it is possible to be hugely talented and successful, whilst also completely avoiding the limelight”. Ah well, onwards and 6ft downwards…

Look Who You Could Have Had:

• Rod Temperton, 66, English keyboardist (Heatwave) and songwriter (“Rock with You“, “Give Me the Night“, “Thriller“), cancer.
• Joan Marie Johnson, 72, American singer (The Dixie Cups), heart failure.
• Brock Yates, 82, American automotive journalist (Car and Driver) and screenwriter (Smokey and the Bandit II, The Cannonball Run), Alzheimer’s disease.
• Steve Byrd, 61, English guitarist (Gillan, Kim Wilde), heart attack.

In Other News

More than £40,000 has been raised in 24 hours to fund pioneering cancer treatment for former Emmerdale star Leah Bracknell. The award-winning actress has been diagnosed with terminal lung cancer and is in a race against time to raise £50,000. Her partner Jez Hughes launched an online appeal on Thursday to raise cash for cutting edge immunotherapy in Germany that they hope will give her a fighting chance to beat the disease. The 52-year-old actress, who played Zoe Tate in the ITV soap from 1989 to 2005, was diagnosed with the condition five weeks ago, as she prepared to return to the stage in a comedy show. In an emotional post about her condition, the mother-of-two – the first British soap character to come out as a lesbian – described how she had been enjoying life as a ‘fit and healthy’ yoga teacher when her world was ‘unexpectedly turned on its head’. Writing on her fundraising page, Leah vowed to fight the cancer with ‘a glass half full’, describing how her priority was ‘to defy expectation’.

The Scottish nurse who was treated for Ebola in 2014 is expected to spend a second day in a Glasgow hospital despite testing negative for the disease. Pauline Cafferkey,  40, was taken to the city’s Queen Elizabeth University Hospital under police escort on Thursday morning after becoming unwell. She is in a stable condition and medics say there is no danger to the public. This is the fourth time Ms Cafferkey has been in hospital since returning to the UK from Sierra Leone two years ago. On Thursday, NHS Greater Glasgow said: “Pauline Cafferkey was admitted to the Queen Elizabeth University Hospital this morning under the care of the Infectious Diseases Unit. “Due to Ms Cafferkey’s past medical history, appropriate precautionary measures were taken whilst further investigations were carried out. “We are pleased to report that tests for the Ebola virus are negative. She remains in a stable condition in the Queen Elizabeth University Hospital. We want to repeat our previous reassurance that there is no risk to the public.”

US reality TV star Kim Kardashian West was robbed at gunpoint at a luxury residence in Paris by at least two men dressed as police officers, her publicist and police say. A box containing jewellery worth up to €6m (£5.2m; $6.7m) was among items taken, a police spokesman said. The concierge led the gunmen to the residence where they tied Kardashian West up in the bathroom, police said. A spokeswoman for the star said she was “badly shaken but physically unharmed”. The mother-of-two – who became a household name thanks to the reality series Keeping up with the Kardashians – has now left France, flying out of a Paris airport aboard a private jet. A police source has told the BBC the attack was carried out by five men, wearing police-style jackets, who forced the building’s overnight security guard to show them where Kardashian West was staying. Once inside, one of the men put a gun to her head while they robbed her of jewellery including a ring worth €4m, then tied her up and locked her in a bathroom while they escaped.

The UKIP MEP involved in an altercation with Steven Woolfe has said he “categorically did not” throw a punch at his colleague. Mike Hookem acknowledged he and his colleague had a “scuffle” in the European Parliament but insisted that he did not hit him. “I am innocent,” he told the BBC. “I never threw a punch. I never assaulted him. I will stand my corner.” UKIP’s Steven Woolfe will be kept in hospital for a further 48 hours. Thursday’s incident is being investigated by UKIP and the European Parliament, where it has been announced the inquiry will be led by Conservative MEP Sajjad Karim. There have been varying descriptions of what happened during what UKIP called an “altercation” and Mr Hookem told BBC Radio Humberside only he and Mr Woolfe knew precisely what went on. Mr Woolfe, among the favourites to be the party’s next leader, collapsed after their exchange and was taken to hospital. The 49-year old had a precautionary scan which revealed there was no blood clot on his brain although he is to remain under observation for a further 48 hours in Strasbourg “as a precaution”.

On This Day

• 1582 – Because of the implementation of the Gregorian calendar, this day does not exist in this year in Italy, Poland, Portugal and Spain.
• 1967 – A day after being captured, Marxist revolutionary Ernesto “Che” Guevara is executed for attempting to incite a revolution in Bolivia.
• 2012 – Members of the Pakistani Taliban make a failed attempt to assassinate an outspoken schoolgirl, Malala Yousafzai.

Deaths

• 1974 – Oskar Schindler, Czech-German businessman (b. 1908)
• 1988 – Felix Wankel, German engineer, invented the Wankel engine (b. 1902)
• 1995 – Alec Douglas-Home, British cricketer and politician, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom (b. 1903)
• 2006 – Paul Hunter, English snooker player (b. 1978)
• 2015 – Geoffrey Howe, Welsh lawyer and politician, Deputy Prime Minister of the United Kingdom (b. 1926)

Last Week’s Birthdays

Sting (65), Annie Leibovitz (67), Donna Karan (68), Chubby Checker (75), Roy Horn (72), Gwen Stefani (48), Neve Campbell (43), Sean William Scott (40), Clive Owen (52), Fred Couples (57), Lena Headey (43), Susan Sarandon (70), Armand Assante (67), Liev Schreiber (49), Alicia Silverstone (40), Christoph Waltz (60), Steve Miller (73), Karen Allen (65), Bob Geldof (65), Kate Winslet (41), Jesse Eisenberg (33), Guy Pierce (49), Britt Ekland (74), Simon Cowell (57), Toni Braxton (49), Thom York (48), Paul Hogan (77), Chevy Chase (73), Sigourney Weaver (67), Matt Damon (46), Brun Mars (31), Jesse Jackson (75) and Kristanna Loken (37).

Next week peeps!

9th October 2016 | Categories: 2016 | Leave A Comment »

Dead Pool 2nd October 2016

Welcome my morbid minions, to a jam-packed edition full of nothing. No points to be shared, no stories to be told. The evil flying monkeys must be flown, as nothing seemed to have happened last week. So expect some big names falling by Wednesday, it has been ordained! I only wish Tony Curtis had died, again…

Look Who You Could Have Had:

• Arnold Palmer, 87, American Hall of Fame professional golfer.
• Jean Shepard, 82, American honky tonk singer-songwriter (“A Dear John Letter“, “Slippin’ Away“), Parkinson’s disease.
• Herschell Gordon Lewis, 87, American film director (Blood Feast, Two Thousand Maniacs!).
• Karam Chand, 110, British supercentenarian, co-holder of the world’s longest marriage.
• Shimon Peres, 93, Polish-born Israeli statesman, President (2007–2014), Prime Minister (1977, 1984–1986, 1995–1996), Nobel Laureate (1994), stroke.
• Ann Emery, 86, British actress (Rentaghost, Billy Elliot, Julia Jekyll and Harriet Hyde).

In Other News

SpaceX founder Elon Musk announced his plan on Tuesday to launch manned missions to Mars by 2022. One small problem: you might die. Musk admitted that the chances of dying on the first trip – which will have about 100 passengers, with tickets likely to be $500,000 – were “quite high”. And even if that first mission is a success, the risk of fatality will remain a definite possibility for those who sign on to the second mission, and the third, and the fourth…  “There’s no way around it… Are you prepared to die? If that’s okay, you’re a candidate for going,” said Musk. Are you willing to go on a trip that could cost you your life? Hell Yes!

Researchers from Spain have found that a tendency to bump off members of the same species is particularly common among primates, and have estimated that around 2% of human deaths at the origin of our species were down to such lethal spats. “What it is saying, in the broadest terms, is that humans have evolved strategies for solving problems with violence,” said Mark Pagel, professor of evolutionary biology at the University of Reading, who was not involved in the research. Writing in the journal Nature, the team of researchers from four Spanish institutions sought to unpick the evolutionary contribution to lethal human violence by looking at how commonly a range of different mammals kill members of the same species. To do so, they examined the evolutionary family tree of mammals, looking at data from more than 1,020 species, as well as 600 human populations stretching as far back in time as the Stone Age, drawing on evidence from human remains found in archaeological excavations. The results revealed that for the ancestor of all mammals, around 1 in every 300 deaths was down to lethal violence between members of the same species. But, the authors note, for evolutionary ancestors of the primates and apes, the figures were higher.

If you take Benjamin Franklin at his word, death is coming. The good and the bad, the young and the old, the in-the-middle: as far as we know, none will live forever. The idea of an eventual death is something that was widely accepted as “true” long ago, but, like many things, it must be updated to suit the modern day. It’s time to accept that when death does come for us, it will be at the hand of our smartphone. And isn’t that comforting? It’s a fitting death: death by smartphone. What used to kill people? Horses, probably. Unlike what you might think, the way we will die by smartphone will not vary. At least not by much. Sure, there will be those who follow a smartphone game off of a cliff, or walk into traffic looking at a map, or lie down on the ground, close their eyes, and refuse to ever get up again because of Twitter. But the rest of us will die when our phones explode. Boom!

On This Day

• 1919 – U.S. President Woodrow Wilson suffers a massive stroke, leaving him partially paralyzed.
• 1925 – John Logie Baird performs the first test of a working television system.
• 1950 – Peanuts by Charles M. Schulz is first published.
• 1959 – The Twilight Zone premieres on CBS television.

Deaths

• 1985 – Rock Hudson, American actor (b. 1925)
• 1998 – Gene Autry, American actor, singer, and guitarist (b. 1907)
• 2006 – Tamara Dobson, American actress (b. 1947)

Last Week’s Birthdays

Mark Hamill (65), Michael Madsen (58), Heather Locklear (55), Will Smith (48), Catherine Zeta-Jones (47), Olivia Newton John (68), Linda Hamilton (60), Jim Caviezel (48), Serena Williams (35), Wilford Brimley (82), Meat Loaf (69), Gwyneth Paltrow (44), Avril Lavigne (32), Naomi Watts (48), Bam Margera (37), Hillary Duff (29), Dita von Tesse (44), Jerry Lee Lewis (81), Ian McShane (74), Johnny Mathis (81), Monica Bellucci (52), Julie Andrews (81),  Zack Galifanakis (47) and Jimmy Carter (92).

The Last Word

“Don’t die like I did.” – George Best, the Northern Irish professional footballer who played as a winger for Manchester United and the Northern Ireland national team.

• Best died as a result of a lung infection and multiple organ failure caused by years of alcoholism.

Next week peeps!

2nd October 2016 | Categories: 2016 | Leave A Comment »

Dead Pool 25th September 2016

Due to the lack of notable deaths this week, we have a bare bones edition of The Dead Pool. Who said everybody seemed to by dying this year??

Look Who You Could Have Had:

• Charmian Carr, 73, American actress and singer (The Sound of Music), complications from dementia.
• Curtis Hanson, 71, American film director and screenwriter (L.A. Confidential, 8 Mile, Wonder Boys), Oscar winner (1998).
• Bill Nunn, 63, American actor (Do the Right Thing, Spider-Man, Sister Act), cancer.

In Other News 

We start this week with the sad news that Monty Python star Terry Jones has been diagnosed with a severe variant of dementia. The 74-year-old is suffering from primary progressive aphasia, which affects his ability to communicate. As a result, Jones “is no longer able to give interviews”, his spokesman said. The news was confirmed as Bafta Cymru announced the Welsh-born comedian is to be honoured with an outstanding contribution award. The National Aphasia Association describes primary progressive aphasia as a neurological syndrome in which language capabilities become slowly and progressively impaired. “It commonly begins as a subtle disorder of language, progressing to a nearly total inability to speak, in its most severe stage,” their website states. Jones, who is from Colwyn Bay in north Wales, was a member of the legendary comedy troupe with Terry Gilliam, John Cleese, Eric Idle, Michael Palin and the late Graham Chapman. He directed Monty Python’s Life of Brian and The Meaning of Life and co-directed Monty Python and the Holy Grail with Gilliam.

A lawyer for Michael Schumacher has told a court in Germany that the former Formula 1 world champion “cannot walk” following his skiing injury. Felix Damm was detailing the extent of Schumacher’s injuries in a lawsuit against German magazine, Bunte. The magazine had reported last Christmas that the seven-time world champion could walk again. But Mr Damm said that Schumacher, 47, “cannot walk” more than two and a half years after the accident. Bunte had quoted a source at the end of last year as saying that Schumacher could manage some steps with the help of therapists and could raise an arm. At the time, Schumacher’s agent, Sabine Kehm, released a statement denying the story, saying: “Unfortunately we are forced by a recent press report to clarify that the assertion that Michael could move again is not true. “Such speculation is irresponsible, because given the seriousness of his injuries, his privacy is very important. Unfortunately they also give false hopes to many involved people.” Schumacher suffered a head injury in a skiing accident in France in 2013. He was placed in a medically induced coma for six months before being transferred to his home in Switzerland to continue his treatment. Very little is known of the sports icon’s recovery as his family has strongly protected his privacy.

What do you do to someone who has already tried to commit suicide? Well, a military prison disciplinary board has seen fit to sentence US whistleblower Chelsea Manning to 14 days in solitary confinement. She will serve seven days, with another seven suspended, for charges relating to her attempt to kill herself in July. She ended a hunger strike last week, after the military agreed to provide her with gender dysphoria treatment. The army private, born as Bradley Manning, is serving a 35-year sentence for espionage. Last July, the former intelligence analyst attempted to take her own life, after what lawyers said was the Army’s refusal to provide appropriate health care. She was found guilty on Thursday by prison officials in Leavenworth, Kansas, of “conduct which threatens” for her suicide attempt. She also was convicted of having “prohibited property” – the book “Hacker, Hoaxer, Whistleblower, Spy” by Gabriella Coleman. Manning was sentenced to 35 years in prison in 2013, after being found guilty of espionage for her role in leaking diplomatic cables and battlefield reports to Wikileaks, the anti-secrecy group. The leak of more than 700,000 documents and videos was one of the largest breaches of classified material in American history.

On This Day

• 1956 – TAT-1, the first submarine transatlantic telephone cable system, is inaugurated.
• 1983 – Maze Prison escape: Thirty-eight republican prisoners, armed with six handguns, hijack a prison meals lorry and smash their way out of the Maze prison. It is the largest prison escape since World War II and in British history.
• 1992 – NASA launches the Mars Observer, a $511 million probe to Mars, in the first U.S. mission to the planet in 17 years. Eleven months later, the probe would fail.

Deaths

• 1984 – Walter Pidgeon, Canadian-American actor (b. 1897)
• 1987 – Mary Astor, American actress (b. 1906)
• 2012 – Andy Williams, American singer (b. 1927)

Last Week’s Birthdays

Frankie Avalon (76), Jada Pinkett Smith (45), Lance Armstrong (45), Jeremy Irons (68), Twiggy (67), Jimmy Fallon (43), Sofia Loren (82), Kristen Johnson (49), Stephen King (69), Bill Murray (66), Ethan Coen (59), Faith Hill (49), Ricki Lake (48), Alphonso Ribeiro (45), Luke Wilson (45), Liam Gallagher (44), Nick Cave (59), Joan Jett (58), Andrea Bocelli (58), Scott Baio (56), Tom Felton (29), Julio Iglesias (73) and Bruce Springsteen (67).

The Last Word

“Is it not meningitis?”–  Louisa May Alcott, an American novelist and poet best known as the author of the novel Little Women.

• Alcott had been in ill health for many years and took a turn for the worse after she visited her father. She did not have meningitis. She may have died of mercury poisoning, the after-effect of an earlier treatment for typhoid fever.

Next week peeps!

25th September 2016 | Categories: 2016 | Leave A Comment »

Dead Pool 18th September 2016

Nil points to  dispense this week, but reading through the news we could have quite easily scored quite a lot, here’s hoping for next week!

Look Who You Could Have Had:

• Alexis Arquette, 47, American actress (The Wedding Singer, Pulp Fiction, Lords of Dogtown).
• Domingos Montagner, 54, Brazilian actor, drowning.
• Edward Albee, 88, American playwright (Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, A Delicate Balance).
• Carlo Azeglio Ciampi, 95, Italian banker and politician, President (1999–2006) and Prime Minister (1993–1994).
• W. P. Kinsella, 81, Canadian writer (Shoeless Joe), assisted suicide.

In Other News

The veteran BBC foreign correspondent John Simpson has told how he nearly died earlier this month from a severe allergic reaction that caused kidney problems. The 72-year-old was rushed to Oxford’s John Radcliffe hospital on 8th September after experiencing what he described as a “rare and deadly allergic reaction”. Simpson had complained of feeling ill and a doctor who came to his house diagnosed him as suffering from food poisoning and dehydration and sent him to hospital, where his condition rapidly declined. Doctors found he had suffered an allergic reaction to medication, which caused kidney problems. “It was like a perfect storm. There was a whole chain of events that meant their was an overreaction on the kidney side which made him seriously ill,” his wife said. Simpson, who has reported from war zones around the world for more than four decades, described the episode as “terrifying” and thanked the staff in the ICU “who saved my life”.

Rolf Harris is reportedly being treated in hospital for  suspected blood poisoning. The Australian-born artist, 86, is serving a near six-year sentence at Stafford prison for historic sex abuse. Our source said, “Harris was treated like any other prisoner in the circumstances. He was escorted from Stafford by prison officers and has been monitored at all times. He is likely to return to jail shortly.” Blood poisoning, also known as sepsis, is triggered by an infection or injury and can be potentially life-threatening if left untreated. In November 2015, we reported that Harris, who is diabetic, had been taken to hospital and fallen ill after eating chocolate and sweets in prison.

US Democratic party presidential candidate Hillary Clinton kept her pneumonia diagnosis from most of her staff, according to reports, choosing to tell only family and close aides. Mrs Clinton was reportedly concerned that news of the illness would be exploited by her opponents. She was diagnosed on Friday and advised to rest, but continued campaigning. Her team was forced to go public with the diagnosis on Sunday when she left a 9/11 memorial early, appearing weak. Speaking to CNN late on Monday, Mrs Clinton said she was feeling “so much better”. She also told the broadcaster that she had not disclosed her pneumonia diagnosis, saying: “I just didn’t think it was going to be that big a deal.” The US presidential candidate said she had ignored a doctor’s “wise” advice to rest for five days. She said she hoped to be back on the trail in “the next couple of days”. The Democratic nominee acknowledged she had lost her balance during Sunday morning’s health scare, but said she did not faint. “I felt dizzy and I did lose my balance for a minute, but once I got in (the van), once I could sit down, once I could cool off, once I had some water, I immediately started feeling better,” she said.

Former Israeli President Shimon Peres is in intensive care after suffering a serious stroke, medical officials say. Doctors at the Sheba Medical Centre near Tel Aviv, where he is being treated, said Mr Peres, 93, was “in a critical condition but stable”. Mr Peres’ son-in-law and personal physician said there was “no imminent threat to his life”, adding that he had a “pretty good chance of survival”. Dr Rafi Valden said Mr Peres was responsive – he had squeezed his hand. There was “certain optimism” after doctors “lessened the dose of sedation”, he said, adding the former president was being sedated and ventilated again to let his brain recover. “We were happy to see that he was reactive, he was responsive,” Dr Valden told journalists. Doctors had earlier said the stroke had caused “lots of bleeding”. In January, he underwent successful minor surgery at the same hospital after suffering a small heart attack.

And finally, imagine if Ken Barlow aka William Roache managed to drown on the set of Coronation Street. Well, this is what has happened in Brazil! Brazilian soap opera star Domingos Montagner drowned in a river where the crew had been recording scenes for the country’s most popular soap opera. Montagner played the leading role in Velho Chico, a soap opera named after the Sao Francisco river where he died. The 54-year-old had gone for a swim with an actress after a day of shooting in the north-eastern state of Sergipe. She said he had been dragged away by the river’s strong currents. The actress, Camila Pitanga, cried for help but local people failed to act initially as they believed the drowning was a scene in the soap opera. Authorities said there was little that anyone could have done. In the soap opera, Montagner played a farmer who often fought off local gunmen. In one of those clashes, he was shot multiple times and appeared to drown in the same Sao Francisco river, but reappeared weeks later, alas we doubt he will make a return this time as four hours after the incident, rescue teams found Montagner’s body trapped in rocks at a depth of 18 metres (59 feet) and some 300 metres (984ft) from where he was last seen. His body will be taken by plane to Sao Paulo, where his funeral will be held on Saturday.

On This Day

• 1793 – The first cornerstone of the Capitol building is laid by George Washington.
• 1809 – The Royal Opera House in London opens.
• 1870 – Old Faithful Geyser is observed and named by Henry D. Washburn during the Washburn–Langford–Doane Expedition to Yellowstone.
• 1906 – A typhoon with tsunami kills an estimated 10,000 people in Hong Kong.
• 1974 – Hurricane Fifi strikes Honduras with 110 mph winds, killing 5,000 people.
• 1977 – Voyager I takes first photograph of the Earth and the Moon together.

Deaths

• 1949 – Frank Morgan, American actor, The Wizard of Oz (b. 1890)
• 1970 – Jimi Hendrix, American singer-songwriter, guitarist, and producer (b. 1942)
• 2004 – Russ Meyer, American director, producer, and screenwriter (b. 1922)

Last Week’s Birthdays

Brian De Palma (76), Virginia Madsen (55), Moby (51), Harry Connick Jr (49), Ian Holm (85), Linda Gray (76), Ben Folds (50), Stella McCartney (45), Sam Neill (69), Tommy Lee Jones (70), Oliver Stone (70), Prince Harry (32), David Copperfield (60), Mickey Rourke (64), Cassandra Peterson (65) and Baz Luhrmann (54).

The Last Word

“I’m not afraid of death. I’m going home”. – Patrick Swayze

Next week peeps!

18th September 2016 | Categories: 2016 | Leave A Comment »

Dead Pool 11th September 2016

Bit thin on the ground again this week. So I wont warble on too much. But if any of you amazing readers would like a go at guest editing or supplying a few articles, please do have a go!

Look Who You Could Have Had:

• Leslie H. Martinson, 101, American film and television director (Batman: The Movie, CHiPs, Fantasy Island).
• Richard Neville, 74, Australian writer and editor (Oz).
• Hugh O’Brian, 91, American actor (The Life and Legend of Wyatt Earp, The Shootist, Twins).
• Darren Seals, 29, American activist (Black Lives Matter), shot.
• Prince Buster, 78, Jamaican ska musician (“One Step Beyond“, “Al Capone”).
• Lord Littlebrook, 87, British midget wrestler. 
• Greta Friedman, 92, American nurse, subject of V-J Day in Times Square.

In Other News

The Princess Royal has cancelled her public engagements next week as she  recovers from a bad chest infection, Buckingham Palace has said. A spokesman said: “On doctors’ orders she has cancelled her engagements for the coming week. She is resting privately at home.” Anne was treated at Aberdeen Royal infirmary on Wednesday before being discharged and returning to Balmoral. Last weekend, she joined the Queen, the Duke of Edinburgh and the Prince of Wales at the Braemar Highland Games, which are held a short distance from the royal family’s summer retreat in Aberdeenshire. The 66-year-old also spent time in Brazil at the Olympic Games as a member of the International Olympic Committee. Could it be some kind of Zika virus variant??

A death we all missed back in April was that of the first-ever person to have a face transplant, Frenchwoman Isabelle Dinoire. In 2005, surgeons  gave her a new nose and mouth after she was disfigured by her pet dog. But heavy use of immunosuppressant drugs weakened her and she succumbed to cancer in April at the age of 49. News of her death, announced by a hospital in Amiens, was delayed to respect her family’s privacy. She told the BBC in 2009 that when she looked in the mirror she saw a mixture of herself and the donor. “The donor is always with me,” she said. Figaro newspaper said she had suffered another transplant rejection. The strong anti-rejection treatment she was receiving led to two cancers, it added. In her BBC interview she said her disfigurement by her dog had come as a result of an attempt to end her life. After taking an overdose of sleeping pills, she awoke lying beside a pool of blood, with her pet Labrador at her side. The dog had apparently found her unconscious, and desperate to rouse her, had gnawed away at her face. The injuries to her mouth, nose and chin were so extreme that doctors ruled out a routine face reconstruction. Instead they proposed a ground-breaking face transplant. She was happy with the surgery but expressed distress at the attention from the media and passers-by that the operation brought her.

Look out all potential presidential candidates because the man who shot US President Ronald Reagan in 1981 has been released from a psychiatric hospital in Washington, DC, 35 years after his assassination attempt stunned the world. John Hinckley Jr, who is now 61, was released from St Elizabeth’s hospital on Saturday morning and returned to his mother’s home in Virginia. Mr Reagan and three others were injured in the shooting outside a Washington hotel on 30 March 1981, weeks into his first White House term. Mr Hinckley, who was obsessed with the movie Taxi Driver and its young star Jodie Foster, is thought to have been trying to impress the actress. He was later found not guilty by reason of insanity. In July, after several decades of treatment at St Elizabeth’s, a judge ruled that Mr Hinckley posed no further danger to himself or to the public. In recent years, he had been spending 17 days a month at his 90-year-old mother’s home, on a golf course in the gated community of Kingsmill, where his bedroom is reportedly decorated with his paintings of houses and cats. Under the conditions of his release, Mr Hinckley will be forbidden to speak to the media and from having any social media accounts. He is banned from contacting Ms Foster or any of his other victims and their families. He must see a psychiatrist regularly and will be permitted to drive no further than 30 miles from the home unaccompanied – or 50 miles if accompanied.

On This Day

• 1941 – Ground is broken for the construction of The Pentagon.
• 1978 – Janet Parker is the last person to die of smallpox, in a laboratory-associated outbreak.
• 1982 – The international forces that were guaranteeing the safety of Palestinian refugees following Israel‘s 1982 Invasion of Lebanon leave Beirut. Five days later, several thousand refugees are massacred in the Sabra and Shatila refugee camps.
• 2001 – Two hijacked aircraft crash into the World Trade Center in New York City, while a third smashes into The Pentagon in Arlington County, Virginia, and a fourth into a field near Shanksville, Pennsylvania, in a series of coordinated suicide attacks by 19 members of al-Qaeda. In total 2,996 people are killed.
• 2007 – Russia tests the largest conventional weapon ever, the Father of All Bombs.

Deaths

• 1972 – Max Fleischer, American animator, director, and producer (b. 1883)
• 1987 – Lorne Greene, Canadian-American actor (b. 1915)
• 1988 – Roger Hargreaves, English author and illustrator (b. 1935) 
• 1994 – Jessica Tandy, English-American actress (b. 1909) 
• 2002 – Kim Hunter, American actress (b. 1922) 
• 2003 – John Ritter, American actor and producer (b. 1948) 
• 2014 – Donald Sinden, English actor (b. 1923)

Last Week’s Birthdays

Beyonce (35), Bob Newhart (88), Raquel Welch (76), Michael Keaton (65), Rose McGowan (43), Roger Waters (73), Delores O’Riordan (45), Pippa Middleton (33), Idris Elba (44), Gloria Gaynor (67), Chrissie Hynde (65), Julie Kavner (66), Shannon Elizabeth (43), Evan Rachel Wood (29), Heather Thomas (59), Martin Freeman (45), Hugh Grant (56), Adam Sandler (50), Eric Stonestreet (45), Michael Buble (41), Joe Perry (66), Colin Firth (56), Guy Richie (48) and Karl Lagerfeld (83).

The Last Word

“I cannot.” – Louis Pasteur – His response when he was offered a cup of milk.

Next week peeps!

11th September 2016 | Categories: 2016 | Leave A Comment »

Dead Pool 4th September 2016

Unsurprisingly, nobody listed Gene Wilder. Often is the case that well loved celebrities never make the list. Remember, if you want to win it, you have to be unscrupulous and harsh.

Look Who You Could Have Had:

• Mr. Fuji, 82, American professional wrestler and manager (WWF).
• Darrell Ward, 52, American reality television personality (Ice Road Truckers), plane crash.
• Gene Wilder, 83, American actor (The Producers, Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory, Young Frankenstein), screenwriter and author, complications of Alzheimer’s disease.
• Doris McLemore, 89, American teacher, last fluent speaker of the Wichita language.
• Joe Sutter, 95, American aeronautical engineer, chief designer of the Boeing 747.
• Jon Polito, 65, American actor (Miller’s Crossing, The Rocketeer, Homicide: Life on the Street), cancer.
• Islam Karimov, 78, Uzbekistani politician, President (since 1990), stroke.

In Other News

We were going to lead this week with the Uzbek President/Dictator, Islam Karimov, having a stroke. Alas he died. So that put a big spanner in the works for us at Death Towers, but we’ll lead with the story anyway.

It does leave central Asia’s most populous country in a state of turmoil and political uncertainty. The Uzbek government did not confirm the reports at first but played funeral music on state channels. Later on Friday the government eventually released a statement saying the 78-year-old president had died. Karimov has no official successor. The most likely candidate to replace him appears to be Uzbekistan’s long-time prime minister, Shavkat Mirziyoyev. There is little prospect that the country of 31 million will democratise, after a quarter of a century characterised by repression, the boiling of prisoners and unflinching authoritarian rule. Even by the standards of the region, Karimov treated manifestations of dissent harshly. The upheaval has sparked much uncertainty for the Karimov family, his daughter, Gulnara Karimova, was for a long time considered a potential successor to her father and was a highly public figure has disappeared. Perhaps we should be looking at listing a few Uzbek elites in the near future.

Jeremy Vine almost got run over by an irate woman in a car as he was cycling home. The lady involved in the alleged road-rage incident has said his “dangerous” cycling provoked her foul-mouthed response. Vine shared the footage of the alleged road rage incident with his Facebook and Twitter followers on Tuesday. The 51-year-old filmed the “horrible moment” on a helmet-mounted camera while cycling home in Kensington, London after hosting his show on Friday 26th August. Have a look at the video yourself and make up your own mind. One thing is for sure, don’t have a wobbly at a cyclist when they work for the BBC.

And finally, an emergency response was initiated at a school in Ohio after around 40 children ingested Bhut Jolokia peppers – one of the hottest species in existence. An unidentified student brought the peppers into Milton Union Middle School, West Milton, and apparently shared them among other students aged 11 to 14. Police and emergency responders were contacted on Friday after the students began to exhibit symptoms such as blotchy skin, hives, sweating, watering eyes and general discomfort. Five students had to be hospitalised. The students “took these peppers voluntarily”, according to a police investigation. “We all drank like 10 cartons of milk,” eighth grade student Cody Schmidt told the newspaper, adding that the pepper was “really hot”. The school’s superintendent, Brad Ritchey, said: “The response of emergency services was amazing, deputies and help from surrounding paramedics. Research conducted in 1980 found a 68 kilogram human would need to eat at least 1.3 kilograms of the hottest chillies in one sitting for the peppers to have a lethal effect.

On This Day

• 1666 – In London, England, the most destructive damage from the Great Fire occurs.
• 1882 – Thomas Edison flips the switch to the first commercial electrical power plant in history, lighting one square mile of lower Manhattan. This is considered by many as the day that began the electrical age.
• 1888 – George Eastman registers the trademark Kodak and receives a patent for his camera that uses roll film.
• 1998 – Google is founded by Larry Page and Sergey Brin, two students at Stanford University.

Deaths

• 2001 – Hank the Angry Drunken Dwarf, American radio host and actor (b. 1962)
• 2006 – Steve Irwin, Australian zoologist and television host (b. 1962)
• 2014 – Joan Rivers, American comedian, television host, and author (b. 1933)

Last Week’s Birthdays

Paul Rubens (64), Daniel Stern (59), Shania Twain (51), Jack Black (47), Jason Priestley (47), LeAnne Rimes (34), Florence Welch (30), Elliott Gould (78), Rebecca DeMornay (57), John McCain (80), Michael Chiklis (53), Cameron Diaz (44), Warren Buffett (86), Van Morrison (71), Richard Gere (67), Chris Tucker (45), Lily Tomlin (77), Barry Gibb (70), Gloria Estefan (59), Keanu Reeves (51), Salma Hayek (50), Jimmy Connors (64), Lennox Lewis (51) and Charlie Sheen (51).

The Last Word

Now I can cross the Shifting Sands. – L. Frank Baum, author of The Wizard of Oz.

• Note: Baum was referring to the Shifting Sands, the impassable desert surrounding the Land of Oz.

Next week peeps!

4th September 2016 | Categories: 2016 | Leave A Comment »

Dead Pool 28th August 2016

No points to award this week, but we do have the joy of reading about Richard Branson falling on his face. If that’s not enough for you, then please take a moment to find a piece of your soul that cares, as the Storm Trooper who hit his head on a door frame has passed away. We’re not sure if he’s actually dead, he might come back as a ghost in subsequent sequels.

Look Who You Could Have Had:

• Sir Antony Jay, 86, English broadcaster, director and writer (Yes Minister).
• Michael Leader, 78, British actor (EastEnders, Star Wars – clumsy Star Wars stormtrooper).
• Steven Hill, 94, American actor (Mission: Impossible, Law & Order, The Firm).
• Walter Scheel, 97, German politician, President of West Germany (1974–1979).
• Marvin Kaplan, 89, American actor (It’s A Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World, Alice, The Great Race).

In Other News

Sir Richard Branson says he thought he was “going to die” after crashing his bike on Caribbean island Virgin Gorda. The businessman said he was “extremely fortunate” only to have suffered a cracked cheek and torn ligaments. Sir Richard said he was cycling down a hill when he hit a speed bump, and “the next thing I knew, I was being hurled over the handlebars and my life was literally flashing before my eyes.” His bicycle “went flying off the cliff and disappeared”, he said. In a post on the Virgin website, the 66-year-old said: “I was heading down a hill towards Leverick Bay when it suddenly got really dark and I managed to hit a sleeping policeman hump in the road head on. “I really thought I was going to die. I went flying head-first towards the concrete road, but fortunately my shoulder and cheek took the brunt of the impact, and I was wearing a helmet that saved my life. “We’ve since recovered the crumpled bicycle, completely destroyed. My cheek has been badly damaged and my knee, chin, shoulder and body severely cut.” Sir Richard said his assistant, Helen Clarke, was first on the scene as he was “lying prostrate on the road” and then another member of his team, George, “sprinted from the bottom of the hill” to assist. The accident happened on the fifth anniversary of a fire which destroyed his luxury home on Necker Island.

Phil Collins has addressed his former alcohol addiction and said he came close to nearly dying due to heavy drinking. The 65-year-old grammy-award winning singer explained he started drinking more after his third marriage broke up and his family moved away to Miami. Collins said he was in turn left with an emotional vacuum and began drinking excessively. “There’s a chapter in it about the drinking, which escalated when my third marriage broke up, and I retired,” he told The New York Times while talking about his new memoir I’m Not Dead Yet. “I was left with this huge void. I didn’t want to work because I wanted to be with the kids, but the kids weren’t there anymore, because they moved to Miami, and I was still in Switzerland.” “You start drinking, and then you start drinking too much. Then it physically hurts you. I came very close to dying at that point. I’m being honest about that. The book is honest, it’s self-deprecating. I’m not shirking my responsibilities. I apologise when I need to.” Collins has spoken about his struggle with alcohol in the past, explaining that heavy drinking nearly cost him his life and he would open a bottle of wine at 11am in the morning at the height of his drinking. Once a drinker, always a drinker.

Singapore prime minister Lee Hsien Loong caused a scare when he fainted briefly while delivering a lengthy televised speech on Sunday, but he resumed speaking after resting. The 64-year-old cancer survivor, son of the city-state’s late founding leader Lee Kuan Yew, suddenly stopped speaking more than two hours into his speech and had to be helped off the stage. When he returned about an hour and 20 minutes later, the crowd in the packed auditorium gave him a standing ovation and thousands of well-wishers expressed relief on social media. Aides blamed fatigue and dehydration and ruled out a stroke. “Thank you for waiting for me. I gave everybody a scare,” said Lee, who has been in power since 2004. He said he fainted during the speech, part of celebrations linked to Singapore’s 51st anniversary as a republic on August 9th. “I think that’s what happened. I’ve never had so many doctors look at me all at once, they think I’m all right. But anyway I’m going to have a full check-up after this.” Lee had been on his feet for more than two hours when he stunned the audience as he slouched over the lectern before cameras cut away to his listeners during a live broadcast. Lee underwent surgery for prostate cancer last year and has received the all-clear from doctors. He survived a bout of lymphoma, a form of cancer, in 1992.

A Vietnamese woman has admitted to paying for her foot and part of her arm to be cut off in order to claim an insurance payout, police say. In May, the 30-year-old woman, named as “Ly Thi N”, pretended she had been hit by a train, the People’s Police Newspaper of Vietnam reports. But she has now reportedly admitted to having paid a friend $2,200 (£1,660) to sever her limbs. The aim was to claim more than $150,000 from her insurance company. A supposed bystander, “Doan Van D”, the same person who did the cutting, had called an ambulance after “finding” the injured woman on a Hanoi railroad. Pictures published by the official police newspaper showed the woman three months later, with her wounds healed. She is believed to run a struggling business, according to local media. Police have dropped the criminal investigation against both suspects, the Tuoi Tre newspaper reports, after all, she’s a bit armless and can’t run anywhere…

And finally, the world’s oldest man has been named as Indonesian Mbah Gotho, who is 145 years old, with documentation that says he was born in 1870. Mr Gotho said he began preparing for his death in 1992, even having a gravestone made, but 24 years later he is still alive. He has now outlived all 10 of his siblings, his four wives and his children. Though his age is impressive, Mr Gotho told a regional news network: “What I want is to die.” For the past three months he has needed to bathed and spoon-fed, and is becoming increasingly frail. Mr Gotho has official documentation which shows his age, and the Indonesian records office says it has confirmed his birth date as December 31 1870. If this is correct, this would earn him the title of the oldest person ever, a title currently held by French centenarian Jeanne Calment, who was 122 when she died – 23 years younger than Mr Gotho. If the documents cannot be independently verified, however, Mr Gotho will not go down in the record books. There are a number of people who claim to have broken Jeanne Calment’s record, such as Nigerian James Olofintuyi, who claims to be 171, and Dhaqabo Ebba from Ethiopia, who claims to be 163, but without verifiable documents they cannot be given her title. The centenarian, from Central Java, says he spends his time listening to the radio, as his eyesight is no longer good enough to watch television. When asked the secret to a long life, he said: “The recipe is just patience”.

On This Day

• 1833 – The Slavery Abolition Act 1833 receives Royal Assent, abolishing slavery through most of the British Empire.
• 1898 – Caleb Bradham invents the carbonated soft drink that will later be called “Pepsi-Cola“.
• 1957 – U.S. Senator Strom Thurmond begins a filibuster to prevent the Senate from voting on Civil Rights Act of 1957; he stopped speaking 24 hours and 18 minutes later, the longest filibuster ever conducted by a single Senator.
• 1963 – March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom: The Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr. gives his I Have a Dream speech.
• 1963 – Emily Hoffert and Janice Wylie are murdered in their Manhattan apartment, prompting the events that would lead to the passing of the Miranda Rights.
• 1988 – Ramstein air show disaster: Three aircraft of the Frecce Tricolori demonstration team collide and the wreckage falls into the crowd. Seventy-five are killed and 346 seriously injured.

Deaths

• 1978 – Robert Shaw, English actor, screenwriter, and author (b. 1927)
• 1987 – John Huston, American actor, director, and screenwriter (b. 1906)

Last Week’s Birthdays

Kenny Rogers (78), Carrie-Anne Moss (49), Alecia Witt (41), Hayden Panettiere (27), RJ Mitte (24), Usain Bolt (30), Tori Amos (53), Ty Burrell (49), Kirsten Wiig (43), Barbara Eden (85), Shelley Long (67), Steve Guttenberg (58), Dave Chappelle (43), Rupert Grint (28), Stephen Fry (59), Sean Connery (86), Tom Skerritt (83), Gene Simmons (67), Elvis Costello (62), Tim Burton (58), Billy Ray Cyrus (55), Claudia Schiffer (46), Rachel Bilson (35), Alexander Skarsgard (40), Melissa McCarthy (46) and Macauley Culkin (36).

The Last Word

“Oh, what’s the bloody point?”

• Kenneth Williams, British actor and raconteur. This was the final entry in his diary.

Next week peeps!

28th August 2016 | Categories: 2016 | Leave A Comment »

Dead Pool 21st August 2016

Finally we’ve had a notable  death at long last! Shân, Dave, Alex & Eliza all correctly guessed that João Havelange, the Brazilian football executive, would kick the bucket this year. 50 points each. We’re pretty much three quarters of the way through the year and the leader board is quite tight at the top so anything could happen!

Look Who You Could Have Had:

• Dalian Atkinson, 48, English footballer (Ipswich Town, Aston Villa), tased.
• James Woolley, 49, American keyboardist (Nine Inch Nails, 2wo), Grammy winner (1993).
• João Havelange, 100, Brazilian football executive, President of FIFA (1974–1998).
• John McLaughlin, 89, American political commentator and television personality (The McLaughlin Group).
• Arthur Hiller, 92, Canadian-born American film director (Love Story, The Hospital, The In-Laws).
• Jack Riley, 80, American actor (The Bob Newhart Show, Rugrats, Spaceballs), pneumonia.
• Brian Rix, 92, British actor (And the Same to You) and activist (Mencap).
• Lou Pearlman, 62, American record producer, music manager (Backstreet Boys, NSYNC) and convicted criminal.
• Matt Roberts, 38, American rock guitarist (3 Doors Down) and songwriter (“Kryptonite“), apparent prescription drug overdose.
• Lilia Cuntapay, 81, Filipino actress (Shake, Rattle & Roll, Brokedown Palace, Six Degrees of Separation from Lilia Cuntapay).

In Other News

Television presenter Charlie Webster “nearly died” after falling ill with a rare strain of malaria at the opening ceremony of the Olympics, according to her mother, shortly after completing a 3,000 mile charity ride to make it to the games. At first, doctors treating the 33-year-old from Sheffield thought she was suffering from exhaustion and dehydration when she felt unwell and started vomiting at the event a fortnight ago. But over the following few days, Webster’s health sharply deteriorated and her family said that she fell unconscious last Thursday, although news of the seriousness of her condition only publicly emerged a week later. The presenter – who has worked for Sky Sports and ITV – remains seriously ill with kidney failure, but has been taken out of an induced coma and can speak to family members by her bedside, according to a family statement. On Thursday, doctors said they are “very happy” with her “neurological results” suggesting she has not suffered any brain damage. However they cautioned that her kidneys were “still not responding to treatment and she remains on dialysis.”

Pauline Cafferkey, the nurse who nearly died after contracting Ebola as a volunteer in west Africa, has been charged by a regulatory body with concealing her high temperature when she returned to the UK. Cafferkey, hailed as a hero for her work in the Ebola treatment units of Sierra Leone, could be struck off by the Nursing and Midwifery Council if the charges are proved against her. The NMC alleged that the Scottish nurse “allowed an incorrect temperature to be recorded” on 29th December 2014 and “intended to conceal from Public Health England staff that you had a temperature higher than 38˚C”. A high temperature is one of the first symptoms of Ebola haemorrhagic fever. NHS workers who returned from volunteering were all supposed to fill in questionnaires about their exposure to the virus in their patients and have their temperatures taken by PHE staff at Heathrow airport. Cafferkey nearly died twice – the first time after being diagnosed in Scotland. She was flown to London to be treated in a special tented Ebola isolation unit at the Royal Free hospital. Last October she developed meningitis as a result of the Ebola virus and had to be transferred to the Royal Free once more. Her condition became critical but she pulled through.

Police have renewed a public appeal for information after three human feet were discovered within a few hundred yards of each other. The first foot was found in Weston Park East in Bath, Somerset, in February, the second was discovered in the garden of a property in Weston Park in July, and the third in the garden of a property in Cranwells Park earlier this month. Avon and Somerset police said the first foot was more than likely to be an exhibit from a medical or educational establishment and was not the result of a crime. The force said it anticipated that inquiries into the second and third feet, which are still undergoing tests, are likely to come to the same conclusion. Temporary DI Paul Catton said: “We are confident no crime has been committed and strongly believe the feet have come from an old private collection. “All three feet show signs they have come into contact with animals and it is likely that they have been moved to the locations they were found from a specific source. Dare I quote Arthur Conan Doyle? “Come, Watson, come!’ he cried. ‘The game is afoot!”

And finally, three people, including two children, have died after their throats were slit by glass-coated strings used for flying kites on India’s Independence Day. Saanchi Goyal, 3, and Harry, 4, were looking out through the sunroof of their cars in different parts of Delhi when sharp strings slit their throats. Zafar Khan, 22, died in the same manner when he was riding his motorbike. Glass-coated strings are used to bring down competitors’ kites, but they also end up injuring and killing people. Many Indians fly kites to celebrate festivals and important occasions like the Independence Day, which is celebrated on 15th August. But every year, there are reports of people dying or getting wounded from the kite strings – locally known as manja – treated with powdered glass or metal to sharpen them. The Delhi government has now banned the use of sharpened manja to fly kites and promised to run campaigns to educate people about the dangers of using such strings.

On This Day

• 1770 – James Cook formally claims eastern Australia for Great Britain, naming it New South Wales.
• 1897 – Oldsmobile, a brand of American automobiles, is founded.
• 1911 – The Mona Lisa is stolen by a Louvre employee.
• 1945 – Physicist Harry Daghlian is irradiated in a criticality accident during an experiment with the Demon core at Los Alamos National Laboratory during the Manhattan Project. He does not turn into a superhero, he dies a horrible death 25 days later.
• 1957 – The Soviet Union successfully conducts a long-range test flight of the R-7 Semyorka, the first intercontinental ballistic missile.
• 1961 – Motown releases what would be its first #1 hit, “Please Mr. Postman” by The Marvelettes.

Deaths

• 1614 – Elizabeth Báthory, Hungarian serial killer (b. 1560)
• 1940 – Leon Trotsky, Russian theorist and politician, founded the Red Army (b. 1879)

Last Weeks Birthdays

Steve Martin (71), Halle Berry (50), Mila Kunis (33), Magic Johnson (57), Ben Affleck (44), Natasha Henstridge (42), Jennifer Lawrence (26), Princess Anne (66), Julie Newmar (83), James Cameron (62), Madonna (58), Steve Carell (54), Ulrika Jonsson (49), Belinda Carlisle (58), Sean Penn (56), Donnie Wahlberg (48), Robert Redford (80), Denis Leary (59), Madeleine Stowe (58), Christian Slater (47), Edward Norton (47), Jim Carter (68), Matthew Perry (47), Bill Clinton (70), Robert Plant (68), Andrew Garfield (33) and Amy Adams (42).

The Last Word

“Let it be known that homosexuals are not cowards.” – Willem Arondeus, Dutch artist and writer, member of the Anti-Nazi resistance.

• He led a group in bombing the Amsterdam Public Records Office, destroying thousands of files to prevent the Nazis from identifying Jews. Within a week, Arondeus and the other members of the group were arrested. Twelve, including Arondeus, were executed by firing squad.

Next week peeps!

21st August 2016 | Categories: 2016 | Leave A Comment »

Dead Pool 14th August 2016

As yet another pointless edition of the Dead Pool lands in your inbox, we can only hope that next week brings in the names we need. Although this week did have people that we have actually heard of on the list, which makes a refreshing change!

Look Who You Could Have Had:

• Padraig Duggan, 67, Irish folk musician (Clannad, The Duggans).
• Gerald Grosvenor, 6th Duke of Westminster, 64, British billionaire property developer.
• Barry Jenner, 75, American actor (Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, Dallas, Family Matters), acute myeloid leukaemia.
• Kenny Baker, 81, British actor (Star Wars, Time Bandits, Flash Gordon).

In Other News

The Yorkshire Ripper Peter Sutcliffe is set to move out of Broadmoor psychiatric hospital and back into jail after a mental health tribunal ruled him sane enough to do so, sources said. The serial killer, 70, has spent 32 years inside the high-security institution in Berkshire after murdering 13 women and attempting to murder seven more between 1976 and 1981. Sutcliffe, a former lorry driver from Bradford, now calls himself Peter Coonan. Most of his victims were prostitutes who were mutilated and beaten to death. The decision of the tribunal has been referred to the Ministry of Justice, which still needs to confirm the move. Sutcliffe was given 20 life terms for the murders and was caught when police found him with a prostitute in his car. A Ministry of Justice spokesman said: “Peter Coonan will remain locked up and will never be released for his evil crimes. ”Decisions over whether prisoners are to be sent back to prison from secure hospitals are based on clinical assessments made by independent medical staff. And I bet their assessment was, why waste more money on him, let the prison population deal with him once and for all.

The former Cuban leader Fidel Castro has made a rare public appearance at an event to mark his 90th birthday. He appeared at a gala in Havana’s Karl Marx Theatre with his brother, President Raul Castro, and Cuba’s ally, Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro. In his first public appearance since April, he appeared frail and remained seated during the event. Too frail to smoke the 90 meter cigar rolled in his honour! The masterpiece took 10 days to create with the help of several assistants who worked 12 hours a day to roll the extraordinary cigar. It was presented on long tables in an old colonial fort overlooking the harbour of Havana.

Pope Francis has surprised 20 former prostitutes by popping in for a visit at their house in Rome. The women had been rescued from their pimps and are being given shelter and protection at an apartment run by a Catholic charity in Italy’s capital. The pontiff ‘chatted’ to the women, some trafficked from Africa and elsewhere in Europe, for more than an hour! The 79-year-old cleric has repeatedly described human trafficking as a “crime against humanity”. The prostitutes were all aged about 30 and had “suffered serious physical abuse” and now lived under “Vatican protection”. Pope Francis encouraged the former sex workers “to be strong” as they started their new lives with the help of the Pope John XXIII Community. Sounds like our newish pontiff has plenty of spunk for a man of his age!

On This Day

• 1885 – Japan’s first patent is issued to the inventor of a rust-proof paint.
• 1893 – France becomes the first country to introduce motor vehicle registration.
• 1969 – Operation Banner: British troops are deployed in Northern Ireland.
• 1980 – Lech Wałęsa leads strikes at the Gdańsk, Poland shipyards.

Deaths

• 1951 – William Randolph Hearst, American publisher and politician, founded the Hearst Corporation (b. 1863)
• 1988 – Enzo Ferrari, Italian race car driver and businessman, founded Ferrari (b. 1898)

Last Week’s Birthdays

David Duchovny (56), Charlize Theron (41), Abbie Cornish (34), Dustin Hoffman (79), Roger Federer (35), Sam Elliott (72), Melanie Griffith (59), Gillian Anderson (48), Eric Bana (48), Anna Kendrick (31), Audrey Tautou (40), Rosanna Arquette (57), Antonio Banderas (56), Hulk Hogan (63), Chris Hemsworth (33), George Hamilton (77), Mark Knopfler (67), Bruce Greenwood (60) and Pete Sampras (45).

The Last Word

“The bastards tried to come over me last night. I guess they didn’t know I was a Marine”. – Private First Class Edward H. Ahrens

• During the Battle of Tulagi, Private Ahrens was mortally wounded while single-handedly fighting back a group of Japanese soldiers attempting to infiltrate Allied lines. After his superior officer discovered Ahrens the next morning surrounded by dead Japanese troops, he whispered these words and died.

Next week peeps!

14th August 2016 | Categories: 2016 | Leave A Comment »

Dead Pool 7th August 2016

In all honesty, you almost didn’t get a newsletter this week. The lack of news and deaths nearly put a stop on us! It’s really time to send out the flying monkeys, don’t blame me if someone you adore dies this week!

Look Who You Could Have Had:

• Gloria DeHaven, 91, American actress (Summer Stock, Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman, Out to Sea), complications from a stroke.
• Anne of Romania, 92, French-born Romanian royal, queen consort of King Michael.
• David Huddleston, 85, American actor (The Big Lebowski, Blazing Saddles, Santa Claus: The Movie), heart and kidney disease.
• Gaspar Saladino, 88, American comic letterer (Superman vs. Muhammad Ali, Arkham Asylum). 

In Other News

Oscar Pistorius has denied injuries to his wrists sustained in prison were “a suicide attempt”, a South African prison spokesman has said. Pistorius claimed he fell out of bed in his cell at the prison where he is serving a six-year sentence for killing his girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp. “Oscar Pistorius denied speculations of a suicide attempt. As a policy principle, we cannot further discuss a particular offender’s personal condition in the public domain,” Manelisi Wolela, a spokesman at the Department of Correctional Services, told Reuters. His brother posted on Twitter to say Pistorius was in good spirits and is “doing well given the circumstances”. He called reports the athlete had tried to injure himself “completely untrue and sensational”.

Brazil’s most recognisable celebrity Pelé pulled out of the Rio  2016 opening ceremony just hours before it was due to begin, but the director insisted this would not detract from a show that aims to be about a lot more than sport. Underscoring how nothing seems to go right for the country recently, the footballer Pelé announced his withdrawal as a result of pain to caused by his recent hip replacement surgery. Local media had reported that he was among the candidates to light the Olympic cauldron. “At this point I’m not physically able to attend the opening of the Olympics,” the 75-year-old said in a statement. “As a Brazilian, I ask God to bless all who participate in this event and to make it a great success.”

Ozzy Osbourne is undergoing “intense therapy” for sex addiction, which caused his separation from his manager and wife of 34 years, Sharon. The Black Sabbath frontman’s representatives released a statement saying he had been dealing with sex addiction for the last six years,but that since his “relationship” with hairstylist Michelle Pugh had been exposed, he had sought treatment. When Osbourne moved out of the family home in May, it was suggested he might have relapsed in his drugs and alcohol addictions. Osbourne himself said: “I have been sober for three and a quarter years. I have not touched drugs or alcohol in that time. Any reports that I am not sober are completely inaccurate.”

On This Day

• 1947 – Thor Heyerdahl‘s balsa wood raft the Kon-Tiki, smashes into the reef at Raroia in the Tuamotu Islands after a 101-day, 7,000 kilometres (4,300 mi) journey across the Pacific Ocean in an attempt to prove that pre-historic peoples could have traveled from South America.
• 1955 – Tokyo Telecommunications Engineering, the precursor to Sony, sells its first transistor radios in Japan.

Deaths

• 1957 – Oliver Hardy, American actor, singer, and director (b. 1892)
• 1999 – Brion James, American actor (b. 1945)

Last Week’s Birthdays

Wesley Snipes (54), Fatboy Slim (53), J.K. Rowling (51), Dean Cain (50), Joe Elliott (57), Coolio (53), Kevin Smith (46), Sam Worthington (40), Edward Furlong (39), Martin Sheen (76), Martha Stewart (75), John Landis (66), James Hetfield (53), Evangeline Lilly (37), Billy Bob Thornton (61), Barack Obama (55), M. Night Shyamalan (46), Gerri Halliwell (44) and Michelle Yeoh (54).

The Last Word

“Well, gentlemen, you are about to see a baked Appel”. – George Appel, executed by electric chair in 1928.

Next week peeps!

7th August 2016 | Categories: 2016 | Leave A Comment »

Dead Pool 31st July 2016

Welcome all, to what seems to be a massive list of dead celebrities. Alas, no point scorers and a slight scarcity of news. But worry not, as usual the Dead Pool Master has tried his best to make the newsletter slightly interesting. Not too interesting mind, I don’t want your expectations to elevate to stratospheric proportions.

Look Who You Could Have Had:

• Shawshank tree, c. 180, North American white oak featured in The Shawshank Redemption.
• Dave Bald Eagle, 97, American Lakota Chief and actor.
• Carl Falck, 109, Norwegian businessman, nation’s oldest living man.
• Marni Nixon, 86, American singer (The King and I, West Side Story, My Fair Lady) and actress (The Sound of Music), breast cancer.
• Forrest Mars Jr., 84, American billionaire businessman (Mars, Incorporated), heart attack.
• JT McNamara, 41, Irish jockey.
• Sandy Pearlman, 72, American record producer and band manager (Blue Öyster Cult, The Clash, Black Sabbath), pneumonia as a complication from a stroke.
• Jack Davis, 91, American cartoonist and illustrator (Tales from the Crypt, The Vault of Horror, Georgia Bulldogs), co-founder of Mad.
• Jerry Doyle, 60, American talk show host and actor (Babylon 5), founder of EpicTimes.
• Vivean Gray, 92, British-born Australian actress (Neighbours, The Sullivans, Prisoner).
• Ken Barrie, 83, British voice actor (Postman Pat) and singer, liver cancer.
• Fred Tomlinson, 90, British singer (The Two Ronnies, Monty Python’s Flying Circus), composer (“The Lumberjack Song“) and critic.

In Other News

Travelling to the moon, Mars or beyond could dramatically increase an astronaut’s risk of dying from cardiovascular disease, the first research into the long-term health of Apollo spacemen has revealed. Nasa’s Apollo programme sent nine manned missions and 24 astronauts beyond  low Earth orbit during the 1960s and early 1970s, including Apollo 11, which delivered Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin to the moon. But it seems such missions might have taken their toll. A team of researchers looking into the fate of the Apollo astronauts has discovered that their rate of death from cardiovascular disease is four to five times higher than that seen for astronauts of the same era who only flew in low Earth orbits, or who never flew on an orbital mission at all. That, the researchers say, suggests that venturing beyond the Earth’s protective magnetic field could cause long-lasting damage to the cardiovascular system, potentially as a result of exposure to deep space radiation. The findings come as a number of space agencies and commercial enterprises are looking to venture to the moon and beyond, with Nasa planning to send humans to Mars in the 2030’s. Time to rewrite those 2017 lists!

1990s styles may be back in fashion, but getting hold of 20-year-old technology is about to get much harder. The last known maker of video cassette recorders, Funai Japan, has announced it is to cease production of VCRs. Those whirring, magic boxes will soon be nothing but a mere memory. Worldwide a total of 900 million VCRs were produced. With nobody producing the format anymore we can officially announce its DEAD!

A skydiver has made history by becoming the first person to leap without a parachute. After a two-minute free-fall, Luke Aikins, 42, landed dead centre in the 100 x100ft net at the Big Sky movie ranch on the outskirts of Simi Valley, California. As cheers erupted, Aikins quickly climbed out, walked over and hugged his wife Monica, who had been watching from the ground with their four-year-old son Logan, who was no doubt fully expecting his father to end up like a pancake. ‘This thing just happened! I can’t even get the words out of my mouth,’ he added as he thanked the dozens of crew members who spent two years helping him prepare for the jump, including those who assembled the fishing trawler-like net and made sure it really worked. Aikins admitted before the jump he was nervous and his mother said she was one family member who would not watch.

On This Day

• 1588 – The Spanish Armada is spotted off the coast of England.
• 1790 – The first U.S. patent is issued, to inventor Samuel Hopkins for a potash process.
• 1970 – Black Tot Day: The last day of the officially sanctioned rum ration in the Royal Navy.
• 1971 – Apollo program: Apollo 15 astronauts become the first to ride in a lunar rover.

Deaths

• 1886 – Franz Liszt, Hungarian pianist, composer, and conductor (b. 1811)
• 1917 – Hedd Wyn, Welsh soldier and poet (b. 1887)
• 1964 – Jim Reeves, American singer-songwriter (b. 1923)
• 2009 – Bobby Robson, English footballer and manager (b. 1933)
• 2012 – Gore Vidal, American journalist, novelist, and screenwriter (b. 1925)
• 2013 – Michael Ansara, American actor (b. 1922)
• 2013 – Trevor Storer, English businessman, founded Pukka Pies (b. 1930)
• 2015 – Roddy Piper, Canadian-American wrestler and actor (b. 1954)

Last Week’s Birthdays

Lynda Carter (65), Gus Van Sant (64), Jennifer Lopez (47), Summer Glau (25), Anna Paquin (34), Matt LeBlanc (49), Mick Jagger (73), Helen Mirren (71), Kevin Spacey (57), Sandra Bullock (52), Kate Beckinsale (43), Josh Radnor (42), Paul Anka (75), Arnold Schwarzenegger (69), Jean Reno (68), Laurence Fishburne (55), Lisa Kudrow (53), Christopher Nolan (46) and Hilary Swank (42).

The Last Word

“Ik schiet beter!” – I could shoot better! – Hannie Schaft

Spoken to a German soldier after having been shot in her execution; the soldier subsequently emptied his machine gun into her.

Next week peeps!

31st July 2016 | Categories: 2016 | Leave A Comment »

Dead Pool 24th July 2016

Let me apologise for the lack of deaths this week, it’s a shit week when the most famous deaths are a Swiss clown and a Tibetan beauty queen. One would think that the heatwave would have culled a few, but alas we’re left twiddling our thumbs.

Look Who You Could Have Had:

• Garry Marshall, 81, American director, producer, writer and actor (Happy Days, Pretty Woman, Murphy Brown), pneumonia.
• John Pidgeon, 69, British broadcaster and writer.
• Tsering Chungtak, 30, Tibetan beauty queen, Miss Tibet 2006, heart attack.
• Dimitri, 80, Swiss clown.

In Other News 

In what could have been poetic justice, a plane carrying Boris Johnson was forced to make an emergency landing at Luton airport last Sunday evening. The Foreign Secretary was travelling on board an RAF passenger jet to Brussels, for the first foreign trip he has been on since his appointment. The aircraft began experiencing mechanical difficulties, possibly with the hydraulics. All other flights were temporarily grounded while the issue was investigated. Eyewitnesses at the airport reported seeing numerous emergency services vehicles in the area around the time of the incident. A Foreign Office spokesman said: “There was a technical issue on the RAF flight on Sunday afternoon carrying the Foreign Secretary and his officials from London to Brussels that required the aircraft to land at Luton Airport. “The Foreign Secretary thanked the RAF crew for their professionalism and was grateful to Luton Airport for the brief, unscheduled welcome.

The sports scientist Stephen Dank has been  discharged from hospital after he was wounded in what appears to be a drive-by shooting. The 52-year-old sustained a minor head injury when shots were fired into his Ascot Vale home about 2.20am on Saturday. Photos from the crime scene suggest at least three bullets were fired into Dank’s house, shattering one of the windows. The biochemist reportedly told Fox Sports News he and his partner were angry but refused to be intimidated or leave their home. He has a black eye and a badly cut nose, after a bullet grazed the bridge of his nose, Fox Sports News reports.

And finally, an American woman took her dead husband’s body on road trip in Alaska, using ice from local canneries to keep the corpse cold, police have said. Officers responded to a call last week to find the body of a 78-year-old man inside an aluminium transport casket. Ketchikan police chief Alan Bengaard told the Ketchikan Daily News that during the journey, which took place over several days, the woman stopped at canneries for ice to put in the truck bed during the “rolling wake.” Bengaard told the Juneau Empire that the body was supposed to be en route to the mortuary, but “for some reason she decided to not go directly to the mortuary and had been driving around with him for a couple days.” “My understanding is kind of — leading up to the events of the last couple days — there’s been a rolling wake or viewing. It was pointed out to me that, evidently, she had stopped at a couple of the canneries and got ice and filled the bed of the truck with ice to keep the body chilled.” The woman is not facing any charges, police said. The man had died of natural causes.

On This Day

• 1567 – Mary, Queen of Scots, is forced to abdicate and replaced by her 1-year-old son James VI.
• 1911 – Hiram Bingham III re-discovers Machu Picchu, “the Lost City of the Incas”.
• 1950 – Cape Canaveral Air Force Station begins operations with the launch of a Bumper rocket.
• 2001 – Simeon Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, the last Tsar of Bulgaria when he was a child, is sworn in as Prime Minister of Bulgaria, becoming the first monarch in history to regain political power through democratic election to a different office.

Deaths

• 1862 – Martin Van Buren, American lawyer and politician, 8th President of the United States (b. 1782)
• 1962 – Wilfrid Noyce, English mountaineer and author (b. 1917)
• 1980 – Peter Sellers, English actor, singer, director, and screenwriter (b. 1925)

Last Week’s Birthdays

Donald Sutherland (81), David Hasselhoff (64), Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall (69), Vin Diesel (49), Kirsten Bell (46), Richard Branson (66), John Glenn (95), Jared Padalecki (34), Benedict Cumberbatch (40), Kim Carnes (71), Louise Fletcher (82), Danny Glover (70), Don Henley (69), Willem Dafoe (61), Rhys Ifans (49), Selena Gomez (24), Woody Harrelson (55),  Alison Krauss (45) and Daniel Radcliffe (27).

The Last Word

I’m in no pain. No pain. Don’t cry for me, Rahaman. I’m going to be with Allah. I made peace with God, I’m okay… Rahaman, how do I look? – Muhammad Ali

Next week peeps!

24th July 2016 | Categories: 2016 | Leave A Comment »

Dead Pool 17th July 2016

Although plenty of people have died last week, none of the fuckers were famous. We’re literally scraping the bottom of the proverbial bucket this week. Luckily for us, plenty of news to be getting on with, but I’m on the verge of sending out those flying monkeys again!

Look Who You Could Have Had:

• Héctor Babenco, 70, Argentine-born Brazilian film director, producer and screenwriter (Kiss of the Spider Woman, Ironweed, Carandiru), heart attack.
• Qandeel Baloch, 26, Pakistani model and social media celebrity, strangled.
• Emma Cohen, 69, Spanish actress (The Glass Ceiling, Voyage to Nowhere, The Grandfather), cancer. 
• Helen Bailey, 51, British author. (body discovered on this date)
• Alan Vega, 78, American singer and musician (Suicide).

In Other News

The Aerosmith guitarist Joe Perry has been rushed to hospital after collapsing on stage during a gig in New York. Perry, 65, was performing with his Hollywood Vampires bandmates Alice Cooper and Johnny Depp at The Amphitheater in Brooklyn when he suddenly slumped onto the drum stage before staggering off. One witness described how Perry went behind a small wall and then passed out in a post on Instagram. “FDNY and NYPD carried him off quickly,” the user named ‘leeniepics’ wrote. Cooper said Perry is in a “stable condition” and “under the best care” in hospital. Perry, Cooper and Depp joined forces in 2015 to form the Hollywood Vampires. Perry’s agent could not immediately be contacted for comment.

Chaka Kahn and her sister have entered an intensive rehabilitation programme to tackle an addiction to prescription pain killers. The  Grammy-award winning singer said she was entering a programme voluntarily with her sister Yvonne Stevens, also known as Taka Boom. Khan, 63, said the death of her friend Prince had forced her into action. Khan’s 1984 cover of Prince’s “I Feel For You” is one of her most famous songs and the pair were friends for decades before his death aged 57 in April. Autopsy results showed the iconic musician had died of an overdose of an opioid painkiller. Khan told the press she had been struggling with an addiction to the same prescription drugs used by Prince. “Unfortunately, I will miss concert appearances over the summer,” she said in a statement. “However, it’s vital that I put my health and well-being first. I know that I am disappointing some of my fans, but I also know they would want me to recover and be well and healthy. “The tragic death of Prince has had us both rethinking and reevaluating our lives and priorities. We knew it was time to take action to save our lives. My sister and I would like to thank everyone for their support, love and prayers.”

England batsman c has been diagnosed with a cancerous tumour, his county Hampshire have confirmed. The 35-year-old was sent for tests after missing this week’s County Championship match against Warwickshire because he felt unwell. He will have more examinations before receiving treatment. Hampshire chairman Rod Bransgrove said: “I would like to send him and his family our very best wishes at this very difficult time.” Left-hander Carberry missed an England Performance Programme tour in late 2010 and part of the 2011 season because of blood clots on a lung.

Japan’s Emperor Akihito has expressed his desire to abdicate in the next few years, public broadcaster NHK reports. The 82-year-old, who has had health problems in recent years, reportedly does not wish to remain emperor if he has to reduce his official duties. But a palace spokesman denied that there is any official plan for the monarch to abdicate in what would be an unprecedented move in modern Japan. Crown Prince Naruhito, 56, is next in line to the Chrysanthemum Throne. An unnamed government source told Japan’s Kyodo news agency that the emperor, who plays a largely ceremonial role but is respected deeply by many Japanese, has been contemplating the move for about a year. His family had accepted his decision, an unnamed palace source told NHK. Emperor Akihito had surgery for prostate cancer in 2003 and a heart bypass operation four years ago, so there’s no wonder he wishes to take a rest.

US Army whistleblower Chelsea Manning tried to kill herself in prison last week, her lawyers have confirmed. Ms Manning, who is transgender, is serving a 35-year sentence at an all-male military facility. Her lawyers accused the US military of violating her privacy by revealing that she had been admitted to hospital. The army had not disclosed the reason for the hospital admission but it was linked to a suicide attempt in media reports. Ms Manning’s legal team said in a statement: “Last week, Chelsea made a decision to end her life. “She would have preferred to keep her private medical information private, and instead focus on her recovery. “She knows that people have questions about how she is doing and she wants everyone to know that she remains under close observation by the prison and expects to remain on this status for the next several weeks.” A tweet was sent from Ms Manning’s account on Monday, reading: “I am okay. I’m glad to be alive. “Thank you for all your love. I will get through this.”

And finally, a campaign to prevent the slaughter of the mother of the bull that killed a Spanish matador has attracted thousands of supporters. Victor Barrio, 29, became the first bullfighter to die in the ring in 30 years when he was gored to death by a bull on live television while fighting in Madrid on Saturday. The matador was fatally pierced in the chest by the animal in the eastern town of Teruel. The bull was subsequently killed. According to Spanish tradition, the mother of any bull that kills a human is also destined to be slaughtered, in order to “kill off the bloodline”. But animal rights campaigners have protested against the killing of the bull’s mother, named Lorenzo, in a movement that has attracted swathes of support through social media. PACMA, a political party in Spain that defends the rights of animals, has set up a petition to oppose the killing and promoted it under the hashtag #SalvemosALorenza – “save Lorenzo” – which has been trending across Spain. Carmen Fraile Martin wrote: “It is shameful that the mother is killed because her son killed a human being. That is absurdity! The fate of Lorenzo is not clear, but Spanish media is reporting that Lorenza is already dead.

On This Day

• 1902 – Willis Carrier creates the first air conditioner in Buffalo, New York.
• 1918 – The RMS Carpathia, the ship that rescued the 705 survivors from the RMS Titanic, is sunk off Ireland by the German SM U-55; five lives are lost.
• 1955 – Disneyland is dedicated and opened by Walt Disney in Anaheim, California.
• 1975 – Apollo–Soyuz Test Project: An American Apollo and a Soviet Soyuz spacecraft dock with each other in orbit marking the first such link-up between spacecraft from the two nations.
• 1989 – First flight of the B-2 Spirit Stealth Bomber.

Deaths

• 1959 – Billie Holiday, American singer-songwriter and actress (b. 1915)
• 2003 – David Kelly, Welsh weapons inspector (b. 1944)
• 2004 – Pat Roach, English wrestler and actor (b. 1937)
• 2005 – Edward Heath, English colonel and politician, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom (b. 1916)
• 2009 – Walter Cronkite, American journalist and actor (b. 1916)

Last Week’s Birthdays

Suzanne Vega (57), Leon Spinks (63), Richard Simmonds (68), Cheryl Ladd (65), Anna Friel (40), Michelle Rodriguez (38), Patrick Stewart (76), Harrison Ford (74), Cheech Marin (70), Harry Dean Stanton (90), Jackie Earle Haley (55), Linds Ronstadt (70), Forest Whitaker (55), Brigitte Nielsen (53), Dianne Kruger (40), Jesse Ventura (65), Michael Flatley (58), Phoebe Cates (53), Will Farrell (49) and Corey Feldman (45).

The Last Word

“It’s okay! Gun’s not loaded… see?” – Johnny Ace, 1950s rhythm and blues singer.

• Ace was playing Russian roulette (or something similar; exact accounts vary) with his revolver on Christmas Day 1954, during a backstage break in his concert that day. Contrary to Ace’s assertion, there was a bullet in the chamber, which, when he pulled the trigger with the barrel of the gun to his face, killed him instantly.

Next week peeps!

17th July 2016 | Categories: 2016 | Leave A Comment »

Dead Pool 10th July 2016

Let’s start off by saying well done to Martin, 37 points for guessing that Gladys Hooper would pop her clogs this year, not many points, but that’s the gamble you take listing supercentenarian’s, you just hope for little and often. Plenty to read this week, so best get on with it!

Look Who You Could Have Had:

• Noel Neill, 95, American actress (Superman).
• John McMartin, 86, American actor (Sweet Charity, Blow Out, Law & Order), cancer.
• Goldie Michelson, 113, Russian-born American supercentenarian, nation’s oldest living person.
• Gladys Hooper, 113, English supercentenarian.

In Other News

Chelsea Manning, the military whistleblower serving a 35 year sentence, was rushed to hospital after reportedly trying to take her own life. A US media report said that Manning, who us being held at in a cell at the US Military Disciplinary Barracks at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, was taken to hospital early on Tuesday morning. CNN said that it was believed that the 28-year-old had tried to kill herself. Manning’s lawyer, Nancy Hollander, said in a statement that she was “shocked and outraged” that an official at Fort Leavenworth provided “confidential medical information” about Manning to the media but had not shared anything with her team. She said she had been due to speak with her client at 2pm on Monday but was told she could not be connected.

Sarah Silverman says she is “insanely lucky to be alive” after developing a serious condition which landed her in intensive care. The comedian was kept  in an intensive care unit for a week after experiencing a “freak case of epiglottitis” she says almost killed her. Epiglottitis is an inflammation of the epiglottis – the flap of tissue beneath the tongue at the back of the throat. Silverman explained in a lengthy Facebook post she initially sought treatment for a sore throat. However, doctors soon diagnosed her with the condition. Silverman underwent surgery and required assistance from a breathing pipe. “When I woke up five days later I didn’t remember anything,” she told her Facebook followers. “I thanked everyone at the ICU for my life, went home, and then slowly as the opiates faded away, remembered the trauma of the surgery and spent the first two days home kind of free-falling from the meds/lack of meds and the paralysing realisation that nothing matters. The 45-year-old also thanked her friends and family, paying a special tribute to her partner, the actor Michael Sheen, who she called her “real-life hero”.

Vladimir Putin has cancelled a series of scheduled appointments and meetings amid mounting speculation surrounding his failure to appear in public since July 1st. The last time the Russian president made a public appearance was at a summit in Finland, in which he warned the Kremlin could take action if the country joined Nato. According to Russian news channel RBC, Mr Putin cancelled a meeting on tourism in Altai on 5th July, postponing it for an “indefinite period”. He also failed to arrive to the opening ceremony he was supposed to attend on Wednesday at VI International Sports Games for the Children of Asia in Yakutia. This was blamed on the President having “a specific schedule that has the ability to change”. The President has also cancelled meetings on 7 July in Novogorod where he was due to visit the production site of Akron, a metal and mining company. The various cancellations had already sparked rumours as to the President’s whereabouts, and the Kremlin is yet to address the matter. Rumours abounded the last time the Russian President vanished from the public eye for a few days, back in March 2015. The lengthy list of reasons included suggestions he was dead, had been overthrown, had a bad back, that his alleged secret girlfriend was having an alleged secret baby, and the theory that Mr Putin had been recovering from plastic surgery to preserve his youthful good looks. Reuters reported at the time that the president was ill, but this was refuted by the Kremlin.

A jockey from Northern Ireland was run over by an ambulance on its way to treat him after he had been kicked in the face by a horse. Chris Meehan, from  County Down, suffered a broken leg when the vehicle drove over him during a hurdle race in Merano, northern Italy, and now faces two months out of action. He was left lying on the ground in a pool of his own blood after falling from his horse and being kicked in the face, before being placed in the recovery position by the race starter. Meehan also had his nose broken in the accident and suffered a gash to his jaw which required 27 stitches. “The racecourse ambulance came up alongside us and reversed up onto my leg,” Meehan told Racing Post. “They stopped it on top of my leg so I started screaming. It broke it straight away. “Everyone around me had to push it off me. You have to laugh really.”

And finally, if you think that chap was having a bad day, two Spanish men are in a serious condition after being gored during the fourth day of the running of the bulls at Pamplona’s San Fermin festival. The men, aged 29 and 34, were from the south-eastern town of Valencia, and were injured in an alleyway leading to the bullring. No further details were revealed. It comes the day after a well-known matador was killed during a bullfight in eastern Spain, the first such incident to occur in the country this century. Professional bullfighter Victor Barrio, 29, was killed by a bull which flipped him over with a horn, then continued to gore and push him along the ground. The fight was taking place at the festival Feria del Angel in Teruel, during an event which was being shown live on TV. No sympathy…

On This Day

• 1212 – The most severe of several early fires of London burns most of the city to the ground.
• 1553 – Lady Jane Grey takes the throne of England.
• 1913 – The temperature in Death Valley, California, hits 134 °F (57 °C), the highest temperature ever to be recorded on Earth.
• 1962 – Telstar, the world’s first communications satellite, is launched into orbit.

Deaths

• 138 – Hadrian, Roman emperor (b. 76)
• 1806 – George Stubbs, English painter and academic (b. 1724)
• 1851 – Louis Daguerre, French photographer and physicist, invented the daguerreotype (b. 1787)
• 1989 – Mel Blanc, American voice actor and singer (b. 1908)
• 2015 – Omar Sharif, Egyptian actor and screenwriter (b. 1932)

Last Week’s Birthdays

Montel Williams (60), Tom Cruise (54), Yardley Smith (52), Bill Withers (78), Huey Lewis (66), Rza (47), Ned Beatty (79), Sylvester Stallone (70), Geoffrey Rush (65), 50 Cent (41), Dalai Lama (81), George W. Bush (70), Ringo Starr (76), Jeffrey Tombor (72), Anjelica Huston (65), Kevin Bacon (58), Brian Dennehy (78), Richard Roundtree (74), Tom Hanks (60), Kelly McGillis (59), Courtney Love (52) and Fred Savage (40).

The Last Word

You can be a king or a street sweeper, but everyone dances with the Grim Reaper. Executed in California’s gas chamber. – Robert Alton Harris, d. April 21, 1992

Next week peeps!

10th July 2016 | Categories: 2016 | Leave A Comment »

Dead Pool 3rd July 2016

Another shockingly early death on our list of doom this week and for one of you it’s good news! Martin correctly guessed that Caroline Aherne would succumb to throat cancer this year and thus gains himself 98 points. Well done that man!

Look Who You Could Have Had:

• Aharon Ipalé, 74, Moroccan-born Israeli actor (The Mummy, Fiddler on the Roof, Alias), cancer.
• Mack Rice, 82, American songwriter (“Mustang Sally“, “Respect Yourself“) and singer, complications of Alzheimer’s disease.
• Alvin Toffler, 87, American writer and futurist (Future Shock, The Third Wave).
• Gordon Murray, 95, British puppeteer and television producer (Trumpton, Camberwick Green, Chigley).
• Robin Hardy, 86, British film director (The Wicker Man).
• Michel Rocard, 85, French politician, Prime Minister (1988–1991).
• Caroline Aherne, 52, English comedian, actress and writer (The Royle Family, The Mrs Merton Show, The Fast Show), throat cancer. 
• Michael Cimino, 77, American screenwriter and director (The Deer Hunter, Thunderbolt and Lightfoot, Heaven’s Gate).

In Other News

An American woman was arrested this week for flooding Stephen Hawking’s email with death threats, then stalking him at an astronomy festival in the Canary Islands. The woman, a US citizen who lives in Norway, sent emails to Hawking telling him she would kill him at the Starmus Festival, a legendary astronomy conference that’s happening this week in Tenerife. According to El Pais, there were over 100 emails and tweets which threatened things like “I am very close to you. I am going to kill you.” The tweets appear to have been deleted, and it’s unclear how the messages were directed at Hawking since he doesn’t have an account. Hawking’s daughter alerted Spanish police, who provided extra security during the festival, including escorting him onstage. Police arrested the woman on Wednesday at a hotel in Tenerife not far from where Hawking was speaking. She had an itinerary showing where Hawking would be each day, as well as detailed notes on his home and office and how she planned to end his life. A Spanish court issued a restraining order barring her from going within 500 meters of Hawking or sending him messages for eight months. Only eight months?

The Queen met Deputy First Minister Martin McGuinness at Hillsborough Castle as she began a two-day visit to Northern Ireland. When asked if she was well the monarch replied: “Well I’m still alive…” Either that was her taking the piss out of the fact that McGuinness failed to kill her during The Troubles of that HRH is starting to feel her age creeping upon her. At 90 years of age The Queen still has an active schedule that belittles some of her sprightly siblings. Maybe listing her has been a waste of time as she still seems to be showing the rest of us how it should be done!

Zimbabwe’s main opposition leader and President Robert Mugabe’s chief rival for the past 17 years has announced he is undergoing treatment for colon cancer. Morgan Tsvangirai, 64, who was prime minister in an uneasy coalition government with Mugabe from 2009-13, said it was important for national leaders to disclose their health status. Morgan Tsvangirai, 64, who was prime minister in an uneasy coalition government with Mugabe from 2009-13, said it was important for national leaders to disclose their health status. “As a leader and a public figure, I have taken a decision to make public my condition,” Tsvangirai said, adding that he had an operation last month and was receiving chemotherapy treatment in neighbouring South Africa.

On This Day

• 1844 – The last pair of great auks are killed.
• 1886 – Karl Benz officially unveils the Benz Patent Motorwagen: The first purpose-built automobile.
• 1938 – World speed record for a steam railway locomotive is set in England, by the Mallard, which reaches a speed of 125.88 miles per hour (202.58 km/h).
• 1969 – Space Race: The biggest explosion in the history of rocketry occurs when the Soviet N-1 rocket explodes and subsequently destroys its launchpad.
• 1996 – Stone of Scone is returned to Scotland.

Deaths

• 1935 – André Citroën, French engineer and businessman, founded the Citroën Company (b. 1878)
• 1937 – Jacob Schick, American-Canadian captain and businessman, invented the electric razor (b. 1877)
• 1969 – Brian Jones, English guitarist, songwriter, and producer (The Rolling Stones) (b. 1942)
• 1971 – Jim Morrison, American singer-songwriter (The Doors and Rick & the Ravens) (b. 1943)

Last Week’s Birthdays

Chris Isaak (60), J.J. Abrams (50), Toby Maguire (42), Mel Brooks (90), Kathy Bates (68), John Cusack (50), Gary Busey (72), Katherine Jenkins (36), Cheryl Cole (33), Michael Phelps (31), Mike Tyson (50), Jamie Farr (82), Debby Harry (71), Dan Aykroyd (64), Pamela Anderson (49), Missy Elliott (45), Liv Tylor (39), Carl Lewis (55), Larry David (69), Jerry Hall (60), and Lindsay Lohan (30).

Next week peeps!

3rd July 2016 | Categories: 2016 | Leave A Comment »

Dead Pool 26th June 2016

Short and sweet this week, I’m sure you would rather be reading something about the EU Referendum anyway… No points awarded, but you have to be sad over the death of Anton Yelchin who managed to squish himself with his own car.

Look Who You Could Have Had:

• Anton Yelchin, 27, Soviet-born American actor (Star Trek, Alpha Dog, Fright Night), blunt traumatic asphyxia.
• Harry Rabinowitz, 100, British music composer (Reilly, Ace of Spies) and conductor (Chariots of Fire, Cats).
• Bill Ham, 79, American band manager (ZZ Top)
• Michael Herr, 76, American author (Dispatches) and screenwriter (Full Metal Jacket, Apocalypse Now).
• Patrick Mayhew, Baron Mayhew of Twysden, 86, British barrister and politician, Secretary of State for Northern Ireland (1992–1997).

In Other News

Selma Blair is feeling especially grateful on her 44th birthday. The actress celebrated her special day with her 4-year-old son, Arthur, on Thursday, and also took some time out to thank everyone on Instagram for their “spirit of loving and forgiveness.” Earlier this week, Blair apologised for having to be removed from an airplane on Monday, after she admitted to mixing alcohol with medication. The actress was coming back from a Father’s Day trip in Mexico on Monday with Arthur and her ex-boyfriend, Jason Bleick, when she allegedly had an outburst while the plane was in the air. She was reportedly taken off the plane on a stretcher. “I made a big mistake yesterday,” Blair said in a statement to Vanity Fair, taking full responsibility for the incident the next day. “After a lovely trip with my son and his Dad, I mixed alcohol with medication, and that caused me to black out and led me to say and do things that I deeply regret.” “I take this very seriously, and I apologize to all of the passengers and crew that I disturbed and am thankful to all of the people who helped me in the aftermath,” she continued. “I am a flawed human being who makes mistakes and am filled with shame over this incident. I am truly very sorry.”

Kelly McGillis, best known for playing Charlotte “Charlie” Blackwood in the 1986 box office hit “Top Gun, was a victim of a house assault last week. The actress told police she heard someone inside her Henderson County, North Carolina house when she returned home, and before she knew it she was under attack. “I was trying to get rid of the stuff in my hand to better assess what was going on when a stranger, a woman, came barreling down the hallway and began yelling at me. I asked her who she is and why she was in my house and she said, ‘You know why. You’ve been stalking me on Twitter.’ From there the woman “began punching and scratching me trying to grab the phone out of my hand.” Finally a neighbour called the cops and the woman, who had a young girl with her, was taken away. Kelly added, “I’m alright. Scratched and bruised. I feel very thankful it turned out well. But who I feel heartache for is the little girl that was with her. Mental illness takes many hostages. I don’t know her name…but I would like to ask that you pray for her and her mother.”

On This Day

• 1483 – Richard III becomes King of England.
• 1870 – The Christian holiday of Christmas is declared a federal holiday in the United States.
• 1906 – The first Grand Prix motor racing event held.
• 1963 – U.S. President John F. Kennedy gave his “Ich bin ein Berliner” speech, underlining the support of the United States for democratic West Germany shortly after Soviet-supported East Germany erected the Berlin Wall.
• 1974 – The Universal Product Code is scanned for the first time to sell a package of Wrigley’s chewing gum at the Marsh Supermarket in Troy, Ohio
• 1977 – The Yorkshire Ripper kills 16-year-old shop assistant Jayne MacDonald in Leeds, changing public perception of the killer as she is the first victim who is not a prostitute.

Deaths

• 2003 – Denis Thatcher, English soldier and businessman (b. 1915)
• 2005 – Richard Whiteley, English journalist and game show host (b. 1943)
• 2012 – Nora Ephron, American director, producer, and screenwriter (b. 1941)

Last Week’s Birthdays

Kathleen Turner (62), Paula Abdul (54), Mia Sara (49), Zoe Saldana (38), Gena Rowlands (86), Salman Rushdie (69), Olympia Dukakis (85), Martin Landau (88), Danny Aiello (83), Brian Wilson (74), Lionel Richie (67), John Goodman (64), Nicole Kidman (49), Juliette Lewis (43), Prince William (34), Lana Del Rey (31), Kris Kristofferson (80), Cindy Lauper (63), Meryl Streep (67), Francis McDormand (59), Selma Blair (44), KT Tunstall (41), Mick Fleetwood (69), Carly Simon (71), Ricky Gervais (55) and George Michael (53).

The Last Word

I’ve never felt better. – Douglas Fairbanks, Sr., actor, d. December 12, 1939

Next week peeps!

26th June 2016 | Categories: 2016 | Leave A Comment »

Dead Pool 19th June 2016

Welcome all, another edition of The Dead Pool hits the press! This week we saw the senseless death of a Labour MP at the hands of a bigot and the passing of ALF, which should be good news to all cats. Alas, we didn’t have space to cover kids being eaten by alligators at Disney World, those rides are getting more and more dangerous I tell you, maybe you should rethink your next holiday!

Look Who You Could Have Had:

• Mimmo Palmara, 87, Italian actor (A Long Ride from Hell, Hercules and the Conquest of Atlantis, Hercules Unchained).
• Tom Leppard, 80, British tattooed man.
• Janet Waldo, 96, American actress and voice artist (The Jetsons, The Flintstones, Wacky Races).
• Michu Meszaros, 76, Hungarian-born American actor (ALF).
• Ronnie Claire Edwards, 83, American actress (The Waltons, The Dead Pool, Designing Women).
• Lois Duncan, 82, American writer (I Know What You Did Last Summer, Hotel for Dogs, Who Killed My Daughter?).
• Jo Cox, 41, British politician, MP for Batley and Spen (since 2015), shot and stabbed.
• Rubén Aguirre, 82, Mexican actor (El Chavo del Ocho, El Chapulín Colorado, Chespirito), pneumonia.
• Attrell Cordes, 46, American rhythm and blues singer (P.M. Dawn), renal disease.
• Ron Lester, 45, American actor (Varsity Blues, Popular, Good Burger), liver and kidney failure.

In Other News

Status Quo guitarist Rick Parfitt is in hospital after suffering a heart attack after performing with the band at Expo 2016. He is currently being treated in Antalya and is said to be in a serious but stable condition. In a statement, his management  said: ‘Whilst his condition is serious, he has already demanded his customary cup of tea with two sugars and a sweetener.’ The band’s manager Simon Porter added: ‘No further comment will be made at this stage until the completion of the next round of tests and assessments to be made over the next few days. ‘We would ask you to respect the family’s privacy at this difficult time.’ A self-confessed former drug addict, Parfitt has suffered a catalogue of health problems, including a quadruple heart bypass in 1997, a throat cancer scare in 2005 and a heart attack in 2011.

Meat Loaf is stable and recovering after collapsing on stage in Canada due to “severe dehydration”. Meat Loaf, whose real name is Marvin Lee Aday, collapsed mid-way through performing his hit ballad “I Would Do Anything for Love” in Edmonton on Thursday evening. Video footage posted on Twitter showed the singer lean heavily to his right and drop his microphone before collapsing to the ground. Several members of his band and crew then rushed on stage to assist him before he was taken to Edmonton Hospital. A statement posted on the 68-year-old’s Facebook page said the collapse was caused by severe dehydration and he is now in a stable condition and “recovering well”. Prior to the incident, Meat Loaf had cancelled two planned performances due to ill health. The singer has the heart condition Wolff-Parkinson-White syndrome and had minor heart surgery in 2003, a week after he collapsed on stage at Wembley Arena.

Lil Wayne has reportedly suffered a seizure forcing his private jet to make an emergency landing. The New Orleans rapper, whose real name is Dwayne Michael Carter Jr, was flying from Milwaukee to California when his pilot was forced to land in Omaha on Monday. He apparently blacked out when the plan touched down. Carter suffered two seizures in 2012 and another in 2013. He’s previously said that he’s epileptic and has suffered seizures since his childhood. “This isn’t my first, second, third, fourth, fifth, sixth or seventh seizure,” Carter the media in 2013. “I’ve had a bunch of seizures. Y’all just never hear about them. But this time, it got real bad because I had three of them in a row.”

Former Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi has been placed in intensive care after undergoing an operation to replace a defective heart valve. The procedure lasted four hours, Milan’s San Raffaele hospital said, giving no further details. But sources told Ansa news agency the operation had been a success. He is likely to take a month to recover. Berlusconi, 79, was admitted to hospital last week after suffering a heart attack his doctor said could have killed him. He is expected to remain in intensive care for another 48 hours. On Monday, Berlusconi wrote on his Facebook page he was “concerned” by the looming operation. “But I am also very moved by the very many demonstrations of appreciation, support and affection which I have received from everywhere, even from political rivals,” he added.

The BBC’s religious affairs correspondent Caroline Wyatt is to step down from her position after being diagnosed with multiple sclerosis. Wyatt, who has worked at the corporation for more than twenty years, has had the condition for 25 years but was only diagnosed at the end of last year. She recently announced she had been off work because of the illness on social media. The veteran reporter said she is very sad to be stepping down but is overwhelmed by the support she has received. “I have lived with the condition for the past 25 years, so the diagnosis came as a relief as it enables me to have treatment and to do all I can to manage it. I am tremendously sad to be stepping down from my religious affairs correspondent at a time that understanding religion has rarely been more important.”

And finally, an Indian cinema-goer has died of a heart attack while watching new horror sequel The Conjuring 2. The unnamed 65-year-old male collapsed from chest pains at Sri Balasubramaniar Cinema in Tiruvannamalai, a town residing in the Indian state of Tamil Nadu, as the film reached its climax. The man was rushed to a nearby hospital where he later passed away. Times of India reports that a strange turn of events then followed; after doctors sent his body to Tiruvannamalai Government Medical College Hospital, both the cadaver and the person tasked with transporting it both went missing in the process. It is believed that the unknown person may have possibly absconded with the body. Fresh news is yet to be reported on the subject but we’re sure that when it arrives there’ll be a perfectly rational explanation as opposed to the supernatural forces several commentators clearly believe were at hand.

On This Day

• 1862 – The U.S. Congress prohibits slavery in United States territories
• 1865 – Over two years after the Emancipation Proclamation, slaves in Galveston, Texas, United States, are finally informed of their freedom.
• 1910 – The first Father’s Day is celebrated in Spokane, Washington.
• 1949 — The first ever NASCAR race was held at Charlotte Motor Speedway.
• 1953 – Julius and Ethel Rosenberg are executed at Sing Sing, in New York.
• 1978 – Garfield, holder of the Guinness World Record for the world’s most widely syndicated comic strip, makes its debut.

Deaths

• 1937 – J. M. Barrie, Scottish novelist and playwright (b. 1860)
• 1993 – William Golding, English author, poet, and playwright, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1911)
• 2013 – James Gandolfini, American actor and producer (b. 1961)

Last Week’s Birthdays

Jason Mewes (42), George H.W. Bush (92), Malcolm McDowell (73), Tim Allen (63), Ally Sheedy (54), David Grey (48), Steve-O (42), Olsen Twins (30), Donald Trump (70), Boy George (55), Steffi Graf (47), Jim Belushi (62), Helen Hunt (53), Courtenay Cox (52), Ice Cube (47), Neil Patrick Harris (43), Barry Manilow (73), Jason Patric (50), Will Forte (46), Newt Gingrich (73), Venus Williams (36), Paul McCartney (74), Isabella Rossellini (64), Alison Moyet (55) and Richard Madden (30).

The Last Word

Ah, that tastes nice. Thank you. – Johannes Brahms, composer, d. April 3, 1897

Next week peeps!

19th June 2016 | Categories: 2016 | Leave A Comment »

Dead Pool 12th June 2016

Another week passes and several notables perish. Alas, none worthy of our listings, but interesting people nevertheless. So no points to dispense but everyone keep an eye out for your Maverick, looks like Americans have finally decided to start shooting celebrities, not just themselves.

Look Who You Could Have Had:

• Manohar Aich, 104, Indian bodybuilder, Mr. Universe (1952).
• Theresa Saldana, 61, American actress (Raging Bull, The Commish, I Wanna Hold Your Hand), renal failure.
• Sir Peter Shaffer, 90, British playwright (Amadeus, Equus, Black Comedy) and screenwriter, Tony (1975, 1981) and Oscar winner (1985).
• Michael Baldasaro, 67, Canadian sect leader (Church of the Universe) and political candidate (Marijuana Party), cancer.
• Bernard Shrimsley, 85, British newspaper editor (The Sun, News of the World).
• Gordie Howe, 88, Canadian Hall of Fame ice hockey player (Detroit Red Wings, Hartford Whalers, national team).
• Christina Grimmie, 22, American singer-songwriter (Find Me) and talent show participant (The Voice), shot.

 In Other News

The former Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi has been taken to hospital with a heart problem, according to a spokeswoman for his party. The 79-year-old’s condition was “nothing to worry about”, she added. A statement by the San Raffaele hospital in Milan said the hospitalisation was necessary after what it called a “cardiac deficiency”. The leader of Forza Italia, who had a pacemaker implanted in a hospital in the US when he was 70, would undergo tests “in the next few days”, the hospital statement said. Mr Berlusconi was Italy’s prime minister four times, but has since been convicted for tax fraud and bribery, not to mention the fornicating with young ladies, maybe this is what brought on his “cardiac deficiency’.

Eleven German MPs of Turkish origin have been put under police protection. They received death threats after supporting a move to describe the 1915 massacre of Armenians by Ottoman Turks as genocide. Germany’s foreign ministry has warned MPs of Turkish origin against travelling to Turkey, saying their security there could not be guaranteed. The German parliament’s move outraged the Turkish government, which does not recognise the killings as genocide. The 11 MPs of Turkish origin who voted for the resolution have faced a backlash of negative opinion from the Turkish government and from within Germany’s sizable Turkish community. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan castigated them, saying: “What sort of Turks are they?” Ankara’s mayor showed the 11 MPs in a tweet, saying they had “stabbed us in the back”. According to German media, it was retweeted by many Turkish nationalists, some of whom made death threats. Juicy! Who thought that the Turks were such pedants over grammar.

In Royal news, The Queen’s official 90th birthday has been marked with the Trooping the Colour parade in central London. More than 1,600 soldiers and 300 horses took part in the annual event on Horse Guards Parade and she appeared on the balcony of Buckingham Palace with members of her family, including Princess Charlotte, for an RAF flypast.

Celebrations were also held to mark 70 years since Thailand’s King Bhumibol Adulyadej, the world’s longest-reining living monarch, came to the throne. The celebrations began with a religious ceremony in Bangkok, led by 770 Buddhist monks, an auspicious number. The 88-year-old king is revered by Thais, for whom he has been a figure of stability through the country’s decades of political upheaval. But he is in poor health and has not been seen in public for months. On Tuesday, he had heart surgery, with what the palace said were “satisfactory results”.  Several hundred people gathered outside the palace on Thursday morning to wish the king well. As expected, he did not make a public appearance.

Online speculation that US actor Jack Black had died was the work of a hacker who posted messages on his rock band’s official Twitter account. Fans expressed dismay after a message on Tenacious D’s Twitter page claimed Black had died at the age of 46. Subsequent messages, however, appeared to suggest the group’s account had been hacked. This was later confirmed by Tenacious D themselves, who called the hacking a “sick ‘prank'”. “WE had our Twitter account hacked,” the band tweeted on Sunday afternoon. “We can assure you that Jack is ALIVE and WELL.” It is not the first time Black, whose films include the Kung Fu Panda trilogy and School of Rock, has been the victim of an online hoax. One in 2012 claimed he had fallen off a cliff in New Zealand, while another in 2014 alleged he had died after a stroke.

On This Day

• 1939 – Shooting begins on Paramount Pictures‘ Dr. Cyclops, the first horror film photographed in three-strip Technicolor.
• 1942 – Anne Frank receives a diary for her thirteenth birthday.
• 1964 – Anti-apartheid activist and ANC leader Nelson Mandela is sentenced to life in prison for sabotage in South Africa.
• 1967 – The United States Supreme Court in Loving v. Virginia declares all U.S. state laws which prohibit interracial marriage to be unconstitutional.
• 1994 – Nicole Brown Simpson and Ronald Goldman are murdered outside her home in Los Angeles, California. O.J. Simpson is later acquitted of the killings, but is held liable in wrongful death civil suit.

Deaths

• 1980 – Billy Butlin, South African-English businessman, founded the Butlins Company (b. 1899)
• 2003 – Gregory Peck, American actor, singer, and producer (b. 1916)

Last Week’s Birthdays

Kenny G (60), Mark Wahlberg (45), Sandra Bernhard (61), Jason Isaacs (53), Paul Giamatti (49), Bjorn Borg (60), Aaron Sorkin (55), Tom Jones (76), Liam Neeson (64), Bear Grylls (42), Bill Hader (38), Anna Kournikova (35), Jerry Stiller (89), Nancy Sinatra (76), Griffin Dunne (61), Kanye West (39), Barbara Bush (91), Michael J. Fox (55), Johnny Depp (53), Natalie Portman (35), Jackie Mason (85), Elizabeth Hurley (51), Gene Wilder (83), Hugh Laurie (57), Joshua Jackson (38) and Shia Lebeouf (30).

The Last Word

Barbara Olson (1955–2001) – What do I tell the pilot to do?

Next week peeps!

12th June 2016 | Categories: 2016 | Leave A Comment »

Dead Pool 5th June 2016

With the tragic demise off The Greatest boxer of all time, Muhammad Ali, we have some points to dispense. Well done to Sarai, Paula, Nick, Mark, Dave, Shan, Wendy, Julia and Nicola, 76 points each. Even more kudos for those of you who have managed to score for the first time. We’re more or less at the half-way point and all but ten of us have scored, which is rather unusual in itself, but the way things are going I strongly suspect that everyone will score something this year, which will be a first for us!

Look Who You Could Have Had:

• Harambe, 17, American gorilla, shot.
• Alan Devereux, 75, British actor (The Archers).
• Carla Lane, 87, English television writer (The Liver Birds, Butterflies, Bread).
• Muhammad Ali, 74, American boxer, three-time WBC world heavyweight champion (1964, 1974, 1978), Olympic gold medalist (1960), respiratory issues.
• Dave Swarbrick, 75, British folk musician and singer-songwriter (Fairport Convention), emphysema.

In Other News 

Richard Simmons has been hospitalised after acting strangely at his Hollywood Hills mansion, it has been reported. The reclusive fitness guru was behaving bizarrely at his home on Friday night, leading someone to call 911. Paramedics took Simmons, 67, to a Cedars Sinai Hospital in Los Angeles. It is not clear if he has been discharged yet. The workout star’s Twitter and Facebook pages continued to be updated with links to news articles through Friday and Saturday, however it is not known whether someone else was in charge of the posts. All the pictures he has posted of himself recently appear to be old. Simmons has been a recluse for the last three years and in March his friends feared he had been ‘kidnapped’ by his housekeeper. Teresa Reveles, 64, was accused of of controlling Simmons using black magic, something the star was forced to deny in phone calls to two chat shows. ‘I am not kidnapped. I am just in my house right now,’ he insisted. ‘No one should be worried about me. The people that surround me are wonderful people who take great care of me.’ Of Reveles, he added: ‘She’s been with me for 30 years. It’s almost like we’re a married couple.’

Nawaz Sharif, the Pakistani prime minister, has travelled to the UK with family to have a second cardiac procedure in five years, his daughter has said. Sharif was in high spirits when he went into the operating theatre at about 8am, according to Maryam Sharif. Posting the information on Twitter, she did not say how long the surgery was expected to take. The operation was for a perforation of the heart, a complication from an earlier cardiac procedure in 2011, Maryam said in another tweet last week. Nawaz Sharif, 66, was prime minister for two terms in the 1990s before being overthrown in a 1999 military coup. After years in exile, he returned to Pakistan in 2007 and led his party to a victory in a 2013 election.

Prince Philip missed a commemoration of the largest naval battle of the First World War following advice from his doctor. The Queen’s husband was told to miss the Battle of Jutland commemoration which saw the Royal Navy fight the Imperial German Navy off the coast of Denmark from 31st May to 1st June in 1916. The 94-year-old, who celebrates his 95th birthday on 10th June, has not been to hospital and is not expected to need an appointment any time soon. “The background is that this is on the doctor’s order, but there are no plans for him to go to hospital,” a spokesperson for Buckingham Palace told the media. “This is a temporary health thing.”

On This Day

• 1883 – The first regularly scheduled Orient Express departs Paris.
• 1917 – World War I: Conscription begins in the United States as “Army registration day”.
• 1956 – Elvis Presley introduces his new single, “Hound Dog“, on The Milton Berle Show, scandalising the audience with his suggestive hip movements.
• 1963 – The British Secretary of State for War, John Profumo, resigns in a sex scandal known as the “Profumo affair”.
• 1968 – Robert F. Kennedy, a U.S. presidential candidate, is shot at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles, by Sirhan Sirhan, a Palestinian. Kennedy dies the next day.
• 1975 – The United Kingdom holds its first country-wide referendum on remaining in the European Economic Community (EEC).
• 1981 – The “Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report” of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports that five people in Los Angeles, California, have a rare form of pneumonia seen only in patients with weakened immune systems, in what turns out to be the first recognised cases of AIDS.
• 1989 – The Tank Man halts the progress of a column of advancing tanks for over half an hour after the Tiananmen Square protests of 1989.
• 2004 – Ronald Reagan, the 40th president of the United States, dies at 93.

Deaths

• 2004 – Ronald Reagan, American actor and politician, 40th President of the United States (b. 1911)
• 2012 – Ray Bradbury, American author and screenwriter (b. 1920)
• 2015 – Tariq Aziz, Iraqi journalist and politician, Iraqi Minister of Foreign Affairs (b. 1936)

Last Week’s Birthdays

LaToya Jackson (60), Noel Gallagher (49), Mel B (41), Colm Meany (63), Steven Gerrard (36), Clint Eastwood (86), Tom Berenger (67), Lea Thompson (55), Brooke Shields (51), Colin Farrell (40), Morgan Freeman (79), Ronny Wood (69), Jonathan Pryce (69), Heidi Klum (43), Alanis Morissette (42), Dana Carvey (61), Zachary Quinto (39), Justin Long (38), Rafael Nadal (30), Noah Wyle (45), Russell Brand (41) and Angelina Jolie (41).

The Last Word

Donald Campbell – (1921–1967) – Hallo, the bow is up… I’m going… I’m on my back… I’ve gone. Oh.

Next week peeps!

5th June 2016 | Categories: 2016 | Leave A Comment »