Dead Pool 2nd November 2014

Good afternoon one and all to this especially poignant edition of the Dead Pool. Yes, your Dead Pool Master lived to see the advent of his 40th birthday, who would have thunk it!! On another note, since most of you know Nickie through the FridayTwiz or the odd post on this here newsletter, you may or may not know that she’s authored a bookie wookie for you to enjoy. So if you like quizzes, and who doesn’t, visit this link for more info or even visit this link to buy her book.

Look Who You Could Have Had:

• Marcia Strassman, 66, American actress (Welcome Back, Kotter, Honey, I Shrunk the Kids), breast cancer.Ted Beniades, 91, American actor (Scarface, Serpico, The Odd Couple).
• Senzo Meyiwa, 27, South African footballer (Orlando Pirates, national team), shot.
• Ian Fraser, 81, English composer and conductor (“Peace on Earth/Little Drummer Boy“, Scrooge, Christmas in Washington), cancer.
• Michael Alsbury, 39, American test pilot and engineer (Scaled Composites), Virgin Galactic crash.

In Other News

The magician Paul Daniels needed an emergency tetanus jab after he was bitten by one of his stage rabbits while he was rehearsing for his new tour. Daniels, 76, was given the shot and prescribed a course of strong antibiotics after the rabbit attacked. The accident happened on Friday and the injury meant he had to delay the start of his show at the Lyceum Theatre in Crewe, part of his Back Despite Popular Demand Tour, with wife Debbie McGee, 55. A source said: “It wasn’t too serious. He still has all his finger. It’s just a little sore. Debbie is enjoying playing nurse.” Daniels, who is famous for his “not a lot” catchphrase, later tweeted: “It will be interesting to do magic with this elastoplasted finger.” It is not the first time he has been attacked by a co-star. In 2011 Paul had to be treated in hospital and was left with a black eye, after puppet Sooty threw a pizza at his head.

Hugh Jackman has had treatment for skin cancer for a third time. His people confirmed that he was treated for Basal Cell Carcinoma after the Wolverine actor was  recently pictured with another bandage on his nose. But his representatives say he’s “all good” after the procedure. The 46-year-old tweeted “Sunscreen” with a picture of his cancerous nose.

South Korea’s spy agency believes it has solved the mystery of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un’s six-week public absence that set off a frenzy of global speculation. The National Intelligence Service told legislators on Tuesday that a foreign doctor operated on Kim in September or October to remove a cyst from his left ankle, lawmaker Shin Kyung-min said. He said the spy agency also told lawmakers that the cyst could recur because of Kim’s obesity, smoking and heavy public schedule.

The inventor of the popular board game Operation is in desperate need of money to pay for a real-life operation. Friends of John Spinello, 77, are hoping to raise $25,000 (£15,400) on a crowdfunding site for oral surgery not covered by his insurance. Mr Spinello sold the game for $500 in 1964 and is not entitled to royalties. He is also planning an auction of the original prototype to raise additional money.

The family of Jules Bianchi have issued a new statement on the Marussia driver’s condition, saying the 25-year-old “continues to fight” for life. Bianchi suffered a diffuse axonal injury to his brain when he crashed into a recovery vehicle in heavy rain during the Japanese Grand Prix at Suzuka on 5th October, and has been undergoing treatment in Japan. In the new statement, the family said: “It will be four weeks this coming Sunday since Jules’ accident and he remains in the Mie General Medical Center in Yokkaichi. His condition continues to be classified by the medical professionals here as critical but stable.”

Everyone’s favourite paedo, Rolf Harris, has lost the first round of a legal challenge against his conviction for indecent assaults. The disgraced entertainer was jailed in July for nearly six years for 12 indecent assaults on four girls, including one aged just seven or eight. The Judicial Office confirmed a judge had refused his application for permission to appeal, lodged in August. But the 84-year-old can still renew the application before three judges at the Court of Appeal.

On This Day

• 1512 – The ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, painted by Michelangelo, is exhibited to the public for the first time.
• 1520 – The Strait of Magellan, the passage immediately south of mainland South America connecting the Pacific and the Atlantic Oceans, is first discovered and navigated by European explorer Ferdinand Magellan during the first recorded circumnavigation voyage.
• 1604 – William Shakespeare‘s tragedy Othello is performed for the first time, at Whitehall Palace in London.
• 1611 – William Shakespeare’s play The Tempest is performed for the first time, at Whitehall Palace in London.
• 1800 – John Adams becomes the first President of the United States to live in the Executive Mansion (later renamed the White House).
• 1896 – A picture showing the bare breasts of a woman appears in National Geographic magazine for the first time.
• 1939 – The first rabbit born after artificial insemination is exhibited to the world.
• 1968 – The Motion Picture Association of America‘s film rating system is officially introduced, originating with the ratings G, M, R, and X.

Deaths

• 1952 – Dixie Lee. American actress, singer, and dancer (b. 1911)
• 1982 – King Vidor, American director, producer, and screenwriter (b. 1894)
• 1985 – Phil Silvers, American actor and singer (b. 1911)
• 2005 – Michael Piller, American screenwriter and producer (b. 1948)

Last Week’s Birthdays

Julia Roberts (47), Jenny McCarthy (42), Joaquin Phoenix (40), Hillary Clinton (67), Henry Winkler (69), Winona Ryder (43), Vanilla Ice (47), Kelly Osborne (30), Richard Dreyfuss (67), Jaclyn Smith (69), John Cleese (75), Anthony Kiedis (52), Toni Collette (52), Simon LeBon (56), Cary Elwes (52), Seth Macfarlane (41), Jon Heder (37), Annie Potts (62), Bill Gates (59) and Larry Flynt (72).

2013 League Table

[confidential]

Next week peeps!

2nd November 2014 | Categories: 2014 | Leave A Comment »

Dead Pool 26th October 2014

Welcome all, a very eventful week in the world of  celebrity deaths, however nobody scored a single point, we all really need to try harder! With little over two months left to play, the scoring has been abysmal this year, either celebrities are getting hardier or we’re simply not good enough at predicting their expiry dates. Let’s hope that the upcoming cold weather reaps a few on our lists, but I suppose celebrities don’t have to worry about heating bills…

Look Who You Could Have Had:

• Mick Burt, British drummer (Chas & Dave), Parkinson’s disease and dementia.
• Lynda Bellingham, 66, Canadian-born British actress (Doctor Who, General Hospital, The Bill), colon cancer.
• Gerard Parkes, 90, Irish-born Canadian actor (Fraggle Rock, The Boondock Saints).
• Raphael Ravenscroft, 60, British saxophonist (“Baker Street“) and author, suspected heart attack.
• John Holt, 67, Jamaican singer (The Paragons) and songwriter (“The Tide Is High”).
• Alvin Stardust, 72, English singer (“My Coo Ca Choo”).
• David Redfern, 78, English photographer, cancer.
• Jack Bruce, 71, Scottish bassist (Cream, Manfred Mann, John Mayall & the Bluesbreakers) and composer, liver disease.

In Other News

Tottenham Hotspur have said they are supporting former football star Paul Gascoigne after it was reported he had been placed on an emergency three-day detox. Medics sectioned the 47-year-old under the Mental Health Act at 3am on Friday after a drinking binge. His close friend and former Spurs team-mate Gary Mabbutt said: “Paul hasn’t been well for the past couple of weeks, he wants to get better and he’s asked for help. He is being looked after very well – he has got a lot of support around him.” Police were called to Gascoigne’s home in Poole, Dorset, at around 3.30pm on Thursday, but something must have happened in-between then and his sectioning at 3am, perhaps he tried an early points score on the Dead Pool?

Bad news for a few Poolers, former Dr Feelgood guitarist Wilko Johnson says he has been “cured” of the terminal pancreatic cancer with which he was diagnosed in 2012. The 67-year-old was initially given 10 months to live after rejecting chemotherapy, but had radical surgery to remove the tumour earlier this year. After an 11 hour operation to remove 3kg of tumour, his pancreas, spleen, part of his stomach, small and large intestines and the removal and reconstruction of blood vessels relating to the liver, Wilko, or what’s left of him, had accepted he was going to die, but now he’s disappointing everyone by pulling through. The lucky bastard!

A footballer has died of injuries he sustained after landing awkwardly while celebrating a goal during a state-level league match in India, the organisers of the Mizoram Premier League have announced. Peter Biaksangzuala, a midfielder for Bethlehem Vengthlang, a club based in the north east of the country, damaged his spinal cord after attempting a series of somersaults to celebrate his equaliser in the fixture against Chanmari West last Tuesday. That’ll teach him!

In more bad news for us, a doctor who treated Michael Schumacher for nearly six months after his brain injury in a skiing accident says the F1 champion has made “some progress”. Jean-Francois Payen, a doctor at the French hospital in Grenoble where he was treated, warned that any recovery would take time. The typical convalescence period was one to three years, he suggested. “I have noted some progress but I would say we should give him time,” he said. Asked about the chances of Schumacher making a recovery, he only referred to a time frame for patients with similar brain injuries. “It’s like for other patients, we are on a timescale which goes from one year to three years and we need to be patient.” Bah!

On This Day

• 1775 – King George III of Great Britain goes before Parliament to declare the American colonies in rebellion, and authorized a military response to quell the American Revolution.
• 1861 – The Pony Express officially ceases operations.
• 1881 – The Gunfight at the O.K. Corral takes place at Tombstone, Arizona.
• 1985 – The Australian government returns ownership of Uluru to the local Pitjantjatjara Aborigines.
• 2002 – Moscow theater hostage crisis: Approximately 50 Chechen terrorists and 150 hostages die when Russian Spetsnaz storm a theater building in Moscow, which had been occupied by the terrorists during a musical performance three days before.

Deaths

• 899 – Alfred the Great, English king (b. 849)
• 1764 – William Hogarth, English painter and engraver (b. 1697)

Last Week’s Birthdays

Katy Perry (30), Jeff Goldblum (62), Kim Kardashian (34), Ryan Reynolds (38), Carrie Fisher (58), Catherine Deneuve (71), Weird Al Yankovic (55), Kevin Kline (67), Tom Petty (64), Snoop Dogg (42), Pele (74), Christopher Lloyd (76), John Lithgow (69), Jesse Tyler Ferguson (39), Evander Holyfield (52), Viggo Mortensen (56), Ken Watanabe (54), Ang Lee (60) and Cat Deeley (38).

Next Week peeps!

26th October 2014 | Categories: 2014 | Leave A Comment »

Dead Pool 19th October 2014

Welcome minions! Yet another week flies by, yet more  pointless deaths. As per usual, we have a few pieces of news and for this week only, a job offer you cannot refuse! Without further ado:

Look Who You Could Have Had:

• Alain Siritzky, 72, French film producer (Emmanuelle film series).
• Bob Orrison, 86, American stunt performer (Stargate, Road House, Speed), traffic collision.
• Gary McLarty, 73, American stunt performer (The Terminator, Jurassic Park, Beverly Hills Cop), traffic collision.
• Graham Miles, 73, English snooker player.
• Mark Bell, 43, British musician and house music producer (LFO), complications from surgery.
• Isaiah “Ikey” Owens, 38, American keyboardist, heart attack.
• Elizabeth Peña, 55, American actress (The Incredibles, Rush Hour, Jacob’s Ladder).
• Sumi Haru, 75, American actress (MASH).
• John Spencer-Churchill, 11th Duke of Marlborough, 88, British peer, custodian of Blenheim Palace.

In Other News

Muhammad Ali was known as the “Louisville Lip”, thanks to his sharp patter and devastating wit which skewered his opponents both in and out of the ring. These days the boxing legend is so stricken by the ravages of Parkinson’s disease that he can hardly speak, his brother has announced. He did not attend the Holly­wood premier of a new film about his life, I Am Ali, last week and was unable to take part in any filming although he is said to have given the project his support. Rahman Ali said that the boxer, who lives in Arizona with his wife, Lonnie, had become increasingly frail in the past year and was now largely housebound. In January, his son, Ali Jr, said he considered there was “no chance” of his father living another year.

Country musics legendary rhinestone cowboy, Glen Campbell, is taking his last bow this autumn. The 78-year-old, who was diagnosed with Alzheimers disease in  2011, said farewell to fans on a Goodbye Tour in 2012, but this week marked the official sunset of Campbells professional music career with the release of his final single, a heartbreaking ballad called I’m Not Gonna Miss You. Very much in the vein of Johnny Cash’s last single, whom died very soon after the release of his last single, a cover of Nine Inch Nails’ Hurt, we rather hope Campbell makes it to January!

The president of Brazil was forced to sit down and be revived live on television after a challenging 90-minute debate with her rival for the presidency. Dilma Rousseff, 66, who is running for re-election in a vote to be held on October 26th, battled her way through a demanding debate with Aecio Neves. After the discussion had ended, she was interviewed by Brazil’s SBT television, but was evidently feeling unwell. She was ushered to a chair by the presenter, who continued to talk to the live television audience, telling them: “The president is feeling ill.” Apparently she was suffering from low blood pressure, we’re thinking it’s more serious!

After more than six weeks of global speculation, the people of North Korea can at last relax: their beloved leader has finally been seen in public once more. State media reported early on Tuesday local time that Kim Jong-un visited a newly built residential district and the Natural Energy Institute of the State Academy of Sciences. Kim was pictured walking with the aid of a black cane – lending weight to the theory that he has been receiving treatment for a leg injury or illness that has affected his ability to walk unaided.

And finally, a woman was horrified to receive a text message from her grandmother’s phone number – three years after her death. When Lesley Emerson died in 2011 some of her favourite things were buried with her, including her mobile phone. Sheri Emerson, of South Shields, said she found comfort in texting her but was stunned to get a reply, saying: “I’m watching over you.”

It emerged her grandmother’s number had been given to another user who replied, thinking friends were playing pranks. Ms Emerson said that following her grandmother’s death, rather than visit her grave at Harton Cemetery in South Shields, she would text small, personal messages as a “way of being close to her”. However, she was “upset and distressed” to receive a reply saying: “I’m watching over you and it’s all going to get better. Just push through.” When a family member rang the number the man who answered explained he had recently acquired the number and thought the text messages from Ms Emerson had been from prankster friends. O2 said numbers disconnected and not reconnected within a short period of time were placed in a general pool for reassignment. Oh my life!

On This Day

• 1216 – King John of England dies at Newark-on-Trent and is succeeded by his nine-year-old son Henry.
• 1900 – Max Planck, in his house at Grunewald, on the outskirts of Berlin, discovers the law of black-body radiation (Planck’s law).
• 1943 – Streptomycin, the first antibiotic remedy for tuberculosis, is isolated by researchers at Rutgers University.
• 1960 – Cold War: The United States government imposes a near-total trade embargo against Cuba, which remains in effect today.
• 1988 – The British government imposes a broadcasting ban on television and radio interviews with members of Sinn Féin and eleven Irish republican and Ulster loyalist paramilitary groups.

Deaths

• 1216 – John, King of England (b. 1167)
• 1745 – Jonathan Swift, Irish priest and poet (b. 1667)
• 1937 – Ernest Rutherford, New Zealand-English physicist and chemist, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1871)
• 1994 – Martha Raye, American actress and singer (b. 1916)
• 2010 – Tom Bosley, American actor and singer (b. 1927)

Get Your Arse to Mars! by KoA

You may or may not have heard of there Mars One mission. As the title suggests, it’s a mission to get man on mars within our lifetime. However, there’s one little snag, it’s a one way trip and researchers at MIT say that the settlers, if they even manage to reach Mars, will only live for a couple of months at most.

The Dutch non-profit foundation that’s behind the Mars One mission say that they already have the technology to achieve this and they can launch a preliminary expedition in 2018, which will be sending toilet-like cubicles to provide food and facilities for the group of stupid humans that make the journey.

The first four settlers will take off in 2024 and land in 2025 after a seven month journey, they will presumably eat whatever food was sent, then starve to death.

Who would make such a journey? Well, 200,000 people have applied, 1,058 have made it through to round two. They are a bunch of healthy adults from around the world and eventually the final six groups of four will be chosen by an international reality TV contest, yes, you will finally be  able to vote for someone to die with barely a whim and a few terms & conditions.

I suppose there is a certain glory involved, your name will go down in history as the first group of people to reach Mars, you will also be known as the first group of people to have died on Mars, or maybe the only one left on Mars after eating your shipmates.

If you hate humanity as much as these 200,000 people, you could have signed up, unfortunately they are not taking any more names, so you will just have to kill yourself instead.

Last Week’s Birthdays

Zac Efron (27), Marie Osmond (55), Hugh Jackman (46), Angela Lansbury (89), Paul Simon (73), Roger Moore (87), Tim Robbins (56), Sarah Ferguson (55), Eminem (42), Suzanne Somers (68), Flea (52), Chuck Berry (88), Sacha Baron Cohen (43), Pam Dawber (63), Michael McKean (67), George Wendt (66), Martina Navratilova (58), Jean-Claude Van Damme (54), Wyclef Jean (45), Steve Coogan (49), Margot Kidder (66), Matt Damon (44) and Luke Perry (48).

2014 League Table

[confidential]

Next week peeps!

19th October 2014 | Categories: 2014 | Leave A Comment »

Dead Pool 12th October 2014

Sunday again, and as sure as the tides, here we are speculating over the demises of the famous. Another slack week I’m afraid, however, we have more than enough to entertain the most morbid of you. I’ll remind you now that there is little over two months to go, so get your thinking caps on for next year because this years scoring has been abysmal so far. Either celebrities are healthier than they used to be or we are shit at this game!

Look Who You Could Have Had:

• Andrea de Cesaris, 55, Italian racing driver (Formula One), traffic collision.
• Geoffrey Holder, 84, Trinidadian actor (Live and Let Die), choreographer (The Cosby Show) and director (The Wiz), pneumonia.
• Peg Griffin, 110, New Zealand supercentenarian, was nation’s oldest person, complications from a stroke.
• Jan Hooks, 57, American comedienne and actress (Saturday Night Live, Designing Women, Batman Returns).

In Other News

Marussia driver Jules Bianchi remains in “critical but stable” condition, almost a week after his crash at the Japanese Grand Prix. The 25-year-old was unconscious when he was taken to hospital from Suzuka. Bianchi lost control close to where Sauber driver Adrian Sutil had spun and hit the tyre barrier. As a recovery vehicle was lifting Sutil’s car, Bianchi travelled across the run-off area and hit the back of the tractor. Although a statement earlier this week from his family, through the Marussia team, said Bianchi had sustained a diffuse axonal injury, no further updates have been given. It is unclear how serious his condition remains.

Michael Schumacher is “fighting” in his recovery, according to former Ferrari boss and current FIA president Jean Todt who believes the world champion’s condition will improve. “He will probably no longer be able to drive in Formula One. Voilà, that’s what we can say,” Todt said. When asked if Schumacher would be able to live a normal life again Todt said: “we have to hope for that”.

Blues guitarist BB King has called off the remaining eight  performances of his current tour after being diagnosed with dehydration and exhaustion. According to his website, the 89-year-old was taken ill during a performance in Chicago on Friday. The tour was to have included two shows at his own blues club in New York. The veteran bluesman, known for such hits as The Thrill is Gone and Every Day I Have the Blues, has diabetes and was briefly in hospital in 2007. Earlier this year, King issued a public apology to fans after an erratic performance in St Louis led to audience catcalls and early departures. His publicists called it “a bad night for one of America’s living blues legends”, we call it a calling to deaths door.

Singer Morrissey has revealed he has had four medical procedures he has described as “cancer-scrapings”. The ex-Smiths star has recently battled bouts of ill health but revealed the cancer news during an email interview with Spanish newspaper El Mundo. “I have had four cancer-scrapings, but so what. If I die, I die,” he wrote. “If I don’t, then I don’t. As I sit here today I feel very well.” He continued, ”I know I look quite bad on recent photographs, but I am afraid this is what illness does to the overall countenance. I will save relaxation for when I’m dead.” Morrissey, cheerful as always.

Thailand’s King Bhumibol Adulyadej is improving following an operation at a Bangkok hospital to remove his gallbladder, say officials. The 86-year-old king is revered as a near-deity in Thailand and news of his latest illness has sparked concern across the country. The king has been admitted to the Siriraj Hospital several times in recent years. He was treated there for stomach inflammation last month. In 2009 he was admitted for a lung infection, and spent nearly four years living in a special suite in the hospital.

And finally, where is North Korea’s Kim Jong-un? Nobody has seen him in weeks! According to South Korean newspaper The Chosun ilbo, the North Korean ruler fractured his ankles after putting on weight from regularly consuming imported Swiss cheese. It’s suggested that he is dead already and that Kim Jong-un’s younger sister may have stepped up to wrest control of the secretive country. This poses a quandary for us Poolers, without confirmation of his fatness dying, no points can be awarded! Anyone fancy taking a holiday?

On This Day

• 1216 – John, King of England loses his crown jewels in The Wash, probably near Fosdyke, perhaps near Sutton Bridge.
• 1492 – Christopher Columbus‘s expedition makes landfall in the Caribbean, specifically in The Bahamas. The explorer believes he has reached the Indies.
• 1582 – Because of the implementation of the Gregorian calendar this day does not exist in this year in Italy, Poland, Portugal and Spain.
• 1773 – America’s first insane asylum opens for ‘Persons of Insane and Disordered Minds’ in Virginia.
• 1799 – Jeanne Geneviève Labrosse was the first woman to jump from a balloon with a parachute, from an altitude of 900 meters.
• 1823 – Charles Macintosh of Scotland sells the first raincoat.
• 1901 – President Theodore Roosevelt officially renames the “Executive Mansion” to the White House.
• 1979 – The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, the first of five books in the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy comedy science fiction series by Douglas Adams is published.
• 1984 – Brighton hotel bombing: The Provisional Irish Republican Army attempt to assassinate Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher and her cabinet. Thatcher escapes but the bomb kills five people and wounds 31.

Deaths

• 1845 – Elizabeth Fry, English social reformer and philanthropist (b. 1780)
• 1870 – Robert E. Lee, American general (b. 1807)
• 1971 – Gene Vincent, American singer-songwriter, guitarist, and actor (b. 1935)
• 1978 – Nancy Spungen, American murder victim, girlfriend of Sid Vicious (b. 1958)
• 1997 – John Denver, American singer-songwriter, guitarist, and actor (Chad Mitchell Trio and The John Denver Band) (b. 1943)

Last Week’s Birthdays

Kate Winslet (39), Simon Cowell (55), Jesse Eisenberg (31), Sigourney Weaver (65),  Paul Hogan (75), Chevy Chase (71), Matt Damon (44), Bruno Mars (28), Emily Deschanel (38), Luke Perry (48), Britt Ekland (72), David Lee Roth (60), Joan Cusack (52), Guy Pearce (47), Jane Krakowski (46), Elisabeth Shue (50), Bob Geldof (63), Karen Allen (63), Stephen Moyer (45), Desmond Tutu (83), Thom Yorke (46), Rev. Jesse Jackson (73), Sharon Osbourne (62), Tony Shalhoub (61), Scott Bakula (60) and Sean Lennon (39).

2013 League Table

[confidential]

Next Week peeps!

12th October 2014 | Categories: 2014 | Leave A Comment »

Dead Pool 5th October 2014

Hi folks, a very quiet week this time, so I’ve pulled out all the stops to produce what I can only call an epic saga of news and entertainment for your perusal. I know, there’s no need to thank me, honestly, I know I’m particularly more awesome than your next door neighbour, so let’s just get on with is shall we?

Look Who You Could Have Had:

• Sheila Tracy, 80, British broadcaster and musician (Big Band Special).
• Lynsey de Paul, 64, English singer-songwriter (“Won’t Somebody Dance with Me“), brain haemorrhage.
• Rob Skipper, 28, British rock musician (The Holloways).
• Jean-Claude Duvalier, 63, Haitian politician, President (1971–1986), heart attack.

In Other News

The television presenter Michaela Strachan has revealed she was diagnosed with breast cancer. Sadly, the Springwatch host said she was forced to have both breasts removed after the cancer was discovered in a mammogram at the start of the year. The 48-year-old, who is set to undergo reconstructive surgery, stressed that her experience showed the importance of regular checkups.

Walmart – owners of the truck that crashed into Tracy Morgan’s limousine contend that his injuries and the death of a passenger were partly their own fault because the 30 Rock comic was not wearing a seatbelt, so nothing to do with the fact that their speeding/sleeping driver hadn’t slept for over 24 hours and managed to total seven vehicles in the crash. I don’t know about how you feel about these things, but these lawyers sometimes talk out of their arses! I’m voting Walmart as cunt of the week!

The British National Party says it has expelled its ex-leader Nick Griffin. In a statement, the BNP accused him of trying to “destabilise” the party and “harassing” party members, so nothing to do with the fact the guy is a twat! The report also suggested that he had ignored warnings from Adam Walker, the party’s chairman, that he was bringing the BNP into disrepute! Disrepute!!!! We better keep an eye on Griffin, or try to, hard to look the man in the face with that massive squint, he’s pretty much on a downward spiral, having being declared bankrupt, fired from his job and now being ignored by his racist friends. A suicide in the making?

Sir Bobby Charlton has been taken to hospital after complaining of stomach pains whilst playing in the Alfred Dunhill Championship pro-am event in Scotland. A source at the hospital said that the Manchester United director, 76, was treated for stomach pains in the accident and emergency department but was then discharged and allowed home. The episode was described as ‘a bit of a turn’, maybe a strong Vindaloo the night before, perhaps its a tumour, who knows, let’s see how it pans out.

Michael Caine has said he is ready to retire at the end of the year, and we all know what happens to men that retire! Caine has had a glittering career that has seen him win two Oscars and become one of Hollywood’s best-known British actors. The 81-year-old has acted in more than a hundred films including Alfie, Zulu, The Italian Job and Get Carter admitted that “I’ve retired, sort of. I’m doing a second one of Now You See Me, a picture I did about magicians,” he said. “I do that in December and then I stop.” We’re wondering if he’s talking about acting or life…

Following news of AC/DC guitarist Malcolm Youngs permanent departure from the band, his family have now confirmed that he’s being treated for dementia. The announcement follows news of AC/DC’s 17th studio album, Rock or Bust, which is produced by Brendan O’Brien and will be released on 1 December. It is the first AC/DC album not to feature Young, most likely because he forgot where he left his guitar.

Good news for us, actor Lynda Bellingham, 66, has decided to stop taking chemotherapy for her cancer riddled body at the end of November with the hope she’ll make it to the end of January, so it  looks like all of us will be starting off the year with 84 points. Let’s hope she has an awesome Christmas and I’m sure you would all like to join me in wishing her well until January.

The long, complicated saga of Casey Kasem’s final resting place has taken another turn as his daughter, Kerri, announced on Twitter that the funeral home in Oslo, Norway has refused to bury the late radio star. The Top 40 star passed away in June in Gig Harbor, Washington, one wonders what’s left to bury after four months of rotting and globe trotting, however, I’m sure that the family know what they are doing, so feel free to sign the petition to have the slightly fluid and bony corpse flown back to the loving arms of his children.

More good news, Oklahoma prison officials unveiled new execution procedures on Tuesday to replace those used in April when an inmate writhed and moaned before being declared dead 43 minutes after his lethal injection began. The new guidelines allow the state to keep using the sedative midazolam, so you wont have to listen to the inmate moan and watch him writhe on the table as he dies. I’m sure all of those on Death Row will be so pleased to hear this news, they will still feel all the pain, but those watching wont have a clue! Well done Oklohoma!

I’m sure some of you have seen footage of Larry Evans on social media, he’s the 57 stone guy who’s sharing his workouts with the world like some kind of inspirational guru. Obviously we can’t disparage his attempts at getting fit and back into shape, but 57 stone and rigorous exercise don’t mix very well. Will he be famous enough to cut the mustard? Will his next dive into the pool cause that fatal coronary? Will bench pressing those hamburgers cause a stroke? Who knows, let’s watch and find out, but as someone who has a slight strain lifting his wine to his mouth, I’m not holding out much hope for this guy.

On This Day

• 1914 – World War I: first aerial combat resulting in an intentional fatality.
• 1947 – The first televised White House address is given by U.S. President Harry S. Truman.
• 1962 – Dr. No, the first in the James Bond film series, is released.
• 1962 – The Beatles‘ first single, “Love Me Do” backed with “P.S. I Love You“, is released in the United Kingdom.
• 1969 – The first episode of Monty Python’s Flying Circus airs on BBC One.

Deaths

• 1983 – Earl Tupper, American inventor and businessman, founded the Tupperware Corporation (b. 1907)
• 2011 – Steve Jobs, American businessman, co-founder and of Apple Inc. (b. 1955)
• 2011 – Charles Napier, American actor (b. 1936)

Five diseases far deadlier than Ebola found in the US by KoA

Since Ebola has reached Texas, I thought we would cover some other diseases that are already killing thousands in the US – let’s look at five currently or recently observed in the US with higher fatality rates.

Amoebic Meningoencephalitis

A rare but highly lethal disease which sees the nervous system infected by a type of amoeba which can be found in warm, stagnant freshwater including swimming pools and lakes. Only five people have ever survived the disease, representing a 97 per cent fatality rate. Infection can occur if contaminated water enters deep into the sinus cavities. There are few symptoms in the first few days of infection beyond a loss of sense of smell, but most of those infected die within 14 days of exposure.

Rabies

Rabies is still present in all parts of the world except for Japan, parts of Western Europe and Australasia, and Antarctica, killing 55,000 annually. Spread by bites or scratches from infected animals, the disease in nearly always fatal once symptoms develop, typically one to three months after infection. A range of animals found in the US can also spread the disease, including bats, skunks, raccoons, foxes, coyotes and even groundhogs. Run now, run for the hills!

Anthrax

Anthrax used to kill hundreds of thousands around the world every year. However, the vaccine developed by Louis Pasteur has seen this vastly diminish. The disease is usually picked up by grazing animals from spores of bacteria in the soil, which can turn into inhalational anthrax, which was known as “woolsorters’ disease” due to the risk of inhaling spores suffered by those in the wool trade. Without treatment, only about 10 – 15% of patients with inhalation anthrax survive.

The Plague

We all remember this from school history lessons, the 14th-century Black Plague was just one of three global pandemics in history, which have collectively killed up to 200 million people. But it is still around, even in America! From 1990-2005, a total of 107 cases of plague were reported in the United States. Mortality from pneumonic plague approaches 100 per cent when untreated, while some strains of bubonic plague can be as high as 70 per cent.

HIV/AIDS

New research this week has claimed the first ever case of the HIV/AIDS pandemic can be traced to Kinshasa in the DR Congo in the 1920s. Since then it has spread across the world infecting some 75 million people and killing 36 million of them. It’s hard to put an exact figure on mortality as treatments vary substantially around the world and are constantly developing, while many die years or even decades after infection, however, the Control of Communicable Diseases Manual puts the case fatality rate among those untreated in a developed country at 80 to 90 per cent in the first five years.

Last Week’s Birthdays

Victoria Silvstedt (40), Brigitte Bardot (80), Mira Sorvino (47), Hilary Duff (27), Dita Von Teese (42), Jerry Lee Lewis (80), Johnny Mathis (79), Julie Andrews (79), Randy Quaid (64), Jimmy Carter (90), Sting (63), Gwen Stefani (45), Neve Campbell (41), Seann William Scott (38), Clive Owen (50), Lena Headey (41), Jackie Collins (77), Susan Sarandon (68) and Alicia Silverstone (38).

2014 League Table

[confidential]

Next Week peeps!

5th October 2014 | Categories: 2014 | Leave A Comment »

Dead Pool 28th September 2014

Welcome again to this weeks amazing holiday edition of the Dead Pool. Well, I’m on holiday, so it’s a holiday edition. So, this week we find no new deaths, but discover that Luke Skywalker is 58 years old and that Catherine Zeta-Jones is regretting marrying a 69 year old Michael Douglas! Oh, not to mention that Draco Malfoy is 27 years old… Brian Ferry 69!!! Fuck off!!!

Look Who You Could Have Had:

• Audrey Long, 92, American film actress (Tall in the Saddle).
• Eric the Midget, 39, American dwarf, member of The Wack Pack.
• George Sluizer, 82, Dutch filmmaker (The Vanishing), cardiovascular disease.
• Frieda Szwillus, 112, German supercentenarian, oldest living person in Germany.
• Deborah Cavendish, Dowager Duchess of Devonshire, 94, British duchess, last surviving Mitford sister.
• Toby Balding, 78, American-born British racehorse trainer.
• Rezső Gallai, 110, Hungarian supercentenarian, oldest man in Europe.

In Other News

In an unprecedented announcement from the North Korean media, they have admitted that their illustrious leader, Kim Jong-un, is ill. That Kim Jong-un, 31, is carrying a few extra pounds has been blindingly obvious since he became North Koreas leader in late 2011. But speculation that his increasing weight is apparently the result of a weakness for cheese that has brought on debilitating spells of gout rose dramatically this week after he failed to attend an important parliamentary session. Rumours that Kim, reputedly a heavy smoker, is in less than robust health came after Kim’s continuing three-week public absence after he was shown limping and wearing loose clothes during inspections of military units and factories. A source said to be familiar with North Korean affairs said that Kim was suffering from gout, diabetes and high blood pressure, surely an excellent cocktail of ailments for our purposes!

Remember Phil Spector? You know, the convicted murderer and former Wall of Sound record producer, yup, I barely  remember him either. However, the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation have seen fit to issue a recent photograph of him for our pleasure, soo very kind of them. The fact that he looks like Gollum is clearly apparent, but let’s be honest here, you would never trust that man with your child would you? Spector , 74, was found guilty of shooting the 40-year-old actress Lana Clarkson, and is currently serving 19 years to life.

Lynda Bellingham has revealed she has just weeks to live after deciding to end her chemotherapy treatment. The actress, 66, who is best known for playing the mother in the Oxo TV adverts, has been battling colon cancer since July last year. Sadly the cancer spread to her lungs and liver, so there is no hope in sight. The question is now, will she live long enough for us to list her for next year? Or will she be another Iain Banks?

And finally, If you consider yourself an adventurous eater, there’s a burger that’s got your name on it. A pop-up venture in London is offering diners the chance to try a “human flesh” burger. Before you fall off your chair in horror, don’t panic, the burger isn’t actually made of people, but is simply meant to taste like it. The unsavoury treat has been concocted by Messhead, a collaboration between chef James Tomlinson of London Mess and Miss Cakehead. Thankfully, the pair didn’t have to nibble human flesh themselves to create their burger: instead, they read accounts from various cannibals about what human flesh tastes like. Inspiration came from flesh munchers including William Seabrook, an explorer who described human flesh as tasting like “good, fully developed veal, not young, but not yet beef” and the murderer Issei Sagawa, who said it “melted in my mouth like raw tuna in a sushi retsaurant”. The final recipe for the patties included pork, veal, bone marrow and chicken livers. Nom nom…

On This Day

• 935 – Saint Wenceslas is murdered by his brother, Boleslaus I of Bohemia.
• 1066 – William the Bastard (as he was known at the time) invades England beginning the Norman conquest of England.
• 1889 – The first General Conference on Weights and Measures (CGPM) defines the length of a meter as the distance between two lines on a standard bar of an alloy of platinum with ten percent iridium, measured at the melting point of ice.
• 1912 – Corporal Frank S. Scott of the United States Army becomes the first enlisted man to die in an airplane crash. He and pilot Lt. Lewis C. Rockwell are killed in the crash of an Army Wright Model B at College Park, Maryland.
• 1924 – First round-the-world flight completed.
• 1928 – The U.K. Parliament passes the Dangerous Drugs Act outlawing cannabis.
• 1928 – Sir Alexander Fleming notices a bacteria-killing mold growing in his laboratory, discovering what later became known as penicillin.
• 1971 – The Parliament of the United Kingdom passes the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971 banning the medicinal use of cannabis.
• 2008 – SpaceX launches the first private spacecraft, the Falcon 1 into orbit.

Deaths

• 1891 – Herman Melville, American author and poet (b. 1819)
• 1895 – Louis Pasteur, French chemist and microbiologist (b. 1822)
• 1914 – Richard Warren Sears, American businessman, co-founded Sears (b. 1863)
• 1953 – Edwin Hubble, American astronomer (b. 1889)
• 1956 – William Boeing, American businessman, founded the Boeing Company (b. 1881)
• 1964 – Harpo Marx, American comedian, actor, and singer (b. 1888)
• 1970 – Gamal Abdel Nasser, Egyptian colonel and politician, 2nd President of Egypt (b. 1918)
• 1978 – Pope John Paul I (b. 1912)
• 1991 – Miles Davis, American trumpet player, composer, and bandleader (Miles Davis Quintet) (b. 1926)
• 2003 – Elia Kazan, Turkish-American actor, director, producer, and screenwriter (b. 1909)
• 2012 – Michael O’Hare, American actor (b. 1952)

Last Week’s Birthdays

Gwyneth Paltrow (42), Michael Douglas (69), Avril Lavigne (30), Bill Murray (64), Bruce Springsteen (65), Mark Hamill (62), Heather Locklear (53), Will Smith (45), Olivia Newton-John (66), Catherine Zeta-Jones (45), Serena Williams (33), Meatloaf (67), Liam Gallagher (42), Michael Madsen (56), Faith Hill (56), Stephen King (67), Nick Cave (57), Joan Jett (56), Andrea Bocelli (56), Jim Caviezel (46), Tom Felton (27), Bryan Ferry (69) and Linda Hamilton (58).

2013 League Table

[confidential]

Next week peeps!

28th September 2014 | Categories: 2014 | Leave A Comment »

Dead Pool 21st September 2014

Welcome Poolers, alas this week is very thin on the ground for celebrity deaths. I blame the glut of deaths last week, we just can’t keep the momentum going. However, we wont let that stop us from enjoying the news and other features we have become accustomed to. I would suggest that you might like to start thinking about next years list, we have little over three months to go, so get your thinking caps on.

Look Who You Could Have Had:

• Angus Lennie, 84, Scottish actor (The Great Escape, Crossroads, Doctor Who).
• Nicholas Romanov, Prince of Russia, 91, French-born Russian claimant to the headship of the House of Romanov.
• Anatoly Berezovoy, 72, Soviet cosmonaut (Soyuz T-5).
• Douglas E. Smith, 54, American video game designer (Lode Runner).
• Darrell Zwerling, 86, American character actor (Chinatown, Grease, Capricorn One).
• Buster Jones, 71, American voice actor (Super Friends).
• Will Radcliff, 74, American businessman, creator of the Slush Puppie.
• Polly Bergen, 84, American singer and actress (Cape Fear, Desperate Housewives, The Winds of Wat), Emmy winner (1958).

In Other News

After last weeks revelation that Toronto Mayor Rob Ford had a tumour, it’s now come to light that he has been diagnosed with a “fairly aggressive” rare cancer. Mr Ford, 45, has a malignant liposarcoma in his abdomen and will begin chemotherapy as soon as possible. According to reports he has a 12cm by 12cm sized tumour in his abdomen and another smaller 2cm tumour in his left buttock, which are believed to have grown within the last three years. His doctor said on Wednesday that it was “impossible to predict” how chemotherapy was going to affect Mr Ford. So a very good candidate for next year, if he lasts…

Swedish King Carl XVI Gustaf has been involved in a car  crash, but is not hurt, the royal palace says. The king was being driven to an airport in Stockholm on Wednesday morning when the collision took place. The car was badly damaged but the king was uninjured and continued his journey in another car, local media said. There have been no reports of other injuries. Photos published in local media showed damage to the front of the car, a dark blue Mercedes, with one air bag deployed. The 68-year-old ascended the throne in 1973. He is best known abroad for presenting the annual Nobel Prizes.

The Newcastle United winger Jonás Gutiérrez has been sent messages of support by former team-mates and supporters groups after revealing he is being treated for testicular cancer in his native Argentina. The 31-year-old midfielder told Argentinian TV he has undergone chemotherapy after having surgery following the discovery of a tumour, which was first noticed last year. Let’s hope his balls recover for long enough so we can list him next year.

An 81-year-old Austrian billionaire, known for the famous partners he invites to the annual Vienna Opera Ball, has married 24-year-old Playboy model Cathy Schmitz. The pair wedded at Schönbrunn palace – a 1,441-room summer residence in Vienna – after meeting in February this year and becoming engaged in August. Billionaire Richard Lugner acknowleged their 57-year age gap, but  “Apart from the big age difference, everything fits,” he said. Cathy announced her marriage on her Facebook page with the words “In love, engaged, married!” along with a picture of her wedding ring. She later wrote that the day was “an incredible and unforgettable experience” whilst listening to imaginary cash register sounds in her vacuous head.

A Belgian man serving a life sentence for rape and murder will be allowed to have doctors end his life, after a landmark ruling which could become European Law. Unable to control his violent sexual urges, Frank Van Den Bleeken, who is 50, argued he would never be freed. This opens the doors to many other ‘lifers’ who would rather die than pay for their crimes by rotting in jail. Should this become a president in law, the Dead Pool could become a busy place!

And finally, a 65-year-old woman from Bangkok has killed herself by jumping into a pit of crocodiles at a reptile farm near the capital. In an inspired but stupid notion, witnesses saw Wanpen Inyai jumping into a pond at Samut Prakarn Crocodile Farm and Zoo on Friday. Staff failed to rescue her. According to reports, she took off her shoes before jumping into the middle of a pond said to be up to 3m deep that contained hundreds of adult crocodiles. At least we can learn from her death, if you’re going to kill yourself, make sure you don’t ruin your shoes.

On This Day

• 1937 – J. R. R. Tolkien‘s The Hobbit is published.
• 1961 – Maiden flight of the CH-47 Chinook transportation helicopter.
• 2003 – Galileo mission is terminated by sending the probe into Jupiter‘s atmosphere, where it is crushed by the pressure at the lower altitudes.

Deaths

• 19 BC – Virgil, Roman poet (b. 70 BC)
• 1998 – Florence Griffith-Joyner, American runner (b. 1959)

Do Not Believe What You Read On T’Internet  by Nickie

(Ever)… 

For those of you who take Twitter as it comes, then seeing a ‘celebrity death’ tweet piques your interest, yes? Even more so if you’re into dead stuff!

Now, maybe football doesn’t really tickle your fancy (it doesn’t float my boat) but when you see a name from your nostalgic past and the word “death or died” in the same tweet sentence then your nostalgic sense pricks up.

Then this is what happens…

You retweet the RIP Tweet

Then you tweet something which includes the words “#deadpool @kingofankh”

You then doubt your retweet but forget about it and drink wine

Then someone (*cough @kingofankh cough*) remembers that the said famous person died 10 years ago and you sink into your settee with shame

Then you look up “died in 2004 IMDB” on Google and you find this

http://www.imdb.com/search/name?death_date=2004

And you go… Holy shit… Christopher Reeve, OMG… Rodney Dangerfield , Fuck me.. Marlon Brando, Aawww… Jerry Orbach

And you keep scrolling and realise that it’s okay to “forget” about famous people dying but it’s also okay to randomly remember how good they were too… So good that you forgot that they were already dead and you’re shocked that you forgot.

*(Ed) Just like Brian Clough… *ahem*

Last Week’s Birthdays

Sophia Loren (80), Twiggy (64), Jimmy Fallon (40), Jeremy Irons (66), Adam West (86), Lance Armstrong (43), Jada Pinkett Smith (43), Elvira, Mistress of the Dark (63), Mickey Rourke (62), David Copperfield (58), Prince Harry (30), Tommy Lee Jones (68), Sam Neill (67), Oliver Stone (68), B.B. King (87), George R.R. Martin (66), David McCallum (81), Baz Luhrmann (52) and Bryan Singer (49).

2013 League Table

[confidential]

Next week peeps!

21st September 2014 | Categories: 2014 | Leave A Comment »

Dead Pool 14th September 2014

Well, what a massacre of a week!! They’ve  been falling thick  and fast and there are   points to be awarded! Let’s start by awarding a former winner, Paul C. 75 points for guessing John Bardon, well done that man! Now onto the Ian Paisley points. John had him down as his Cert, 162 points!! The following also had Paisley and get 62 points: Shan, Sylvia, Martin and Jemm. Well done all of you, with well over half of us now having scored, other than me and a few others. Yes, even your erstwhile Dead Pool Master has yet to score too. So don’t feel bad if you’re still sitting on a duck, even an old pro like me finds this game a bit hard some years…

Look Who You Could Have Had:

• Stefan Gierasch, 88, American actor (Carrie, Dark Shadows, High Plains Drifter).
• Molly Glynn, 46, American actress (Chicago Fire), struck by falling tree.
• Fanny Godin, 112, Belgian supercentenarian, was nation’s oldest living person.
• S. Truett Cathy, 93, American restaurateur and businessman, founder of Chick-fil-A.
• Sean O’Haire, 43, American professional wrestler, suicide by strangulation.
• Jane Baker, British television writer (Doctor Who, Space: 1999, Watt on Earth).
• Graham Joyce, 59, British speculative fantasy author, cancer.
• Denny Miller, 80, American actor (Tarzan, the Ape Man, Wagon Train), amyotrophic lateral sclerosis.
• Robert Young, 49, Scottish guitarist (Primal Scream).
• Richard Kiel, 74, American actor (The Spy Who Loved Me, Moonraker, Happy Gilmore).
• Bob Crewe, 82, American songwriter (“The Sun Ain’t Gonna Shine (Anymore)“, “Lady Marmalade“) and record producer (The Four Seasons).
• Sir Donald Sinden, 90, English actor (The Cruel Sea, The Day of the Jackal, Two’s Company).
• John Bardon, 75, English actor (EastEnders).
• Ian Paisley, 88, Northern Irish politician, Leader of the Democratic Unionist Party (1971–2008), First Minister (2007–2008).

In Other News 

Iran’s supreme leader has undergone prostate surgery at a government hospital in Tehran, state media said in a rare report on the state of health of 75-year-old Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. The official IRNA news agency said the operation, which was described as routine, was successful. There were no immediate details on what had prompted the surgery or the underlying medical condition, but as we all know, once an geriatric starts getting medical treatment, these doctors never leave them alone until they’re dead!

Toronto’s controversial mayor, Rob Ford, has been admitted to a hospital and is believed to have a tumour in his abdomen, health officials said on Wednesday. Rueben Devlin from Humber regional hospital said Ford had been complaining of abdominal pains and that an examination has resulted in a working diagnosis of a tumour. Ford, 45, became an international celebrity last year after he acknowledged using crack in a “drunken stupor” following months of denials. The mayor returned to work in June after a rehab stint for drug and alcohol abuse and is running for re-election on 27th October. The Toronto Sun reported that Ford was hospitalised in 2009 for a tumour on his appendix, leading to its removal, along with part of his colon. The mayor’s father died of colon cancer in 2006.

Michael Schumacher has left his hospital in Lausanne, nine months after suffering a life-threatening injury in a skiing accident. His manager, Sabine Kehm, said in a statement that the former F1 world champion still faced a long and difficult road ahead and would continue his rehabilitation at home. The statement further said that Schumacher’s move should not be interpreted as a sign of massive changes in his health status but fell short of actually saying anything useful.

Greg Norman is recovering in hospital after almost cutting off his hand with a chainsaw. The 59-year-old Australian posted a picture of himself on Twitter and Instagram on Saturday night as he recovered in a hospital bed in the United States. Norman said he was “damaged” but “lucky” to still have a left hand after the chainsaw accident. “Working with a chainsaw ALWAYS be respectful of the unexpected,” he wrote. “I was one lucky man today. Damaged, but not down & out. Still have left hand.”

A US television news anchorman in Illinois has shared the  heartbreaking news with his viewers that he has only six months to live. Dave Benton, 51, explained that he has a brain tumour which is too big to operate on, but said that as a born-again Christian he was ‘at peace’ and hoped to keep working for as long as possible. Personally I’d be flying around the world quaffing cocktails and shagging prostitutes, but each to their own.

And finally, in a Darwinian accident waiting to happen, a teacher in the US state of Utah who was legally carrying a gun in her primary school was seriously injured when it accidentally discharged. The incident happened in a staff toilet before classes started and no children were in the building. Utah is among a number of states that allow people with permits to carry concealed weapons into primary schools. Luckily a substitute teacher was brought in to supervise the wounded teacher’s class. I don’t know how vicious toddlers are in the US, but obviously the need to carry a pistol upon your person says a lot about American kids.

On This Day

• 1752 – The British Empire adopts the Gregorian calendar, skipping eleven days (the previous day was September 2).
• 1901 – President of the United States William McKinley dies after an assassination attempt on September 6, and is succeeded by Theodore Roosevelt.
• 1917 – Russia is officially proclaimed a republic.
• 1959 – The Soviet probe Luna 2 crashes onto the Moon, becoming the first man-made object to reach it.

Deaths

• 1715 – Dom Pérignon, French monk (b. 1638)
• 1852 – Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington, Irish-English field marshal and politician, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom (b. 1769)
• 1901 – William McKinley, American soldier, lawyer, and politician, 25th President of the United States (b. 1843)
• 1982 – Grace Kelly, American-Monacan actress and singer (b. 1929)
• 2005 – Robert Wise, American director and producer (b. 1914)
• 2006 – Mickey Hargitay, Hungarian-American bodybuilder and actor (b. 1926)
• 2009 – Keith Floyd, English chef and author (b. 1943)
• 2009 – Henry Gibson, American actor and singer (b. 1935)
• 2009 – Patrick Swayze, American actor, singer, and dancer (b. 1952)
• 2012 – Jacques Antoine, French game show producer, created The Crystal Maze and Fort Boyard (b. 1924)

Last Week’s Birthdays

Shannon Elizabeth (41), Evan Rachel Wood (27), Hugh Grant (54), Adam Sandler (48), Rachel Hunter (45), Eric Stonestreet (43), Michael Buble (39), Colin Firth (54), Moby (48), Harry Connick Jr. (47), Linda Gray (74), Ian Holm (83), Jason Statham (47), Freddie Jones (87), Virginia Madsen (53), Brian De Palma (74), Guy Richie (46), Topol (79), Martin Freeman (43), Pink (35), Doug Bradley (60), Dario Argento (74) and Julie Kavner (64).

2013 League Table

[confidential]

Next week peeps!

14th September 2014 | Categories: 2014 | Leave A Comment »

Dead Pool 7th September 2014

Afternoon peeps, and as sure as rain falls from the sky,  more celebrities have unfortunately died. But surprisingly, nobody listed Joan Rivers this year!! To think we all could have scored 69 points of the death of that hateful old gobby cow!! Anyhow, the woman who once said that all Palestinians deserved to die and also belittled our much loved Adele, is now thankfully dead. Woo!

Look Who You Could Have Had:

• Jimi Jamison, 63, American musician (Survivor), suspected heart attack.
• Gottfried John, 72, German actor (Berlin Alexanderplatz, GoldenEye), cancer.
• Roy Heather, 79, English television actor (Only Fools and Horses).
• Donatas Banionis, 90, Lithuanian Soviet actor (Solaris), stroke.
• Clare Cathcart, 48, Northern Irish actress (Call the Midwife, Doctors).
• Joan Rivers, 81, American actress and comedienne, respiratory and cardiac arrest.
• Simone Battle, 25, American singer (G.R.L.), apparent suicide.

In Other News

The author Jenny Diski has revealed in an essay that she’s been given an inoperable cancer diagnosis and “two to three years” by her doctor. Diski, who is 67, is currently writing her new memoir “a fucking cancer diary? Another fucking cancer diary” which will be published in parts in the London Review of Books. The author thanked readers for the “kindly thoughts” which have poured in, but is too grumpy and chemoed to reply individually at the mo.”

A woman from Mexico celebrated what was believed to be her 127th birthday on Sunday, making her the world’s oldest living person. Leandra Becerra marked the occasion with her grandson’s family in Zapopan, western Mexico. She has lived with his family for the last five years. Her grandson, Samuel Alvear, said he was told that Ms Becerra’s original birth certificate was burnt during the Mexican revolution of 1910 to 1917. Ms Becerra was issued with a new birth certificate in 2009 after an investigation of 20th century electoral documents by the government. The document states her date of birth as August 31 1887. The Guinness World Record for the oldest living person is currently held by Japanese national, Misao Okawa, who is 116 years old.

Justin Bieber was arrested Friday after crashing an ATV into a minivan and getting into a fight. Bieber, 20, was arrested at about 3pm Friday by Canadian provincial police and charged with assault and dangerous driving in rural southwestern Ontario, in the town of Perth East. Police said that Bieber’s vehicle collided with a minivan and that Bieber then got into a fight with one of its occupants. Authorities didn’t say whether anyone else was arrested in the incident, and declined to provide a mug shot. He was released without bail, and is scheduled to appear in Stratford, Ontario court on 29 September. Bieber is already on probation in California. It’s unclear whether the arrest could constitute a violation.

On This Day

• 1695 – Henry Every perpetrates the most profitable pirate raid in history with the capture of the Grand Mughal ship Ganj-i-Sawai. In response, Emperor Aurangzeb threatens to end all English trading in India.
• 1895 – The first game of what would become known as rugby league football is played, in England, starting the 1895–96 Northern Rugby Football Union season.
• 1909 – Eugène Lefebvre crashes a new French-built Wright biplane during a test flight at Juvisy, south of Paris, becoming the first aviator in the world to lose his life in a powered heavier-than-air craft.
• 1936 – The last surviving member of the thylacine species, Benjamin, dies alone in its cage at the Hobart Zoo in Tasmania.
• 1978 – While walking across Waterloo Bridge in London, Bulgarian dissident Georgi Markov is assassinated by Bulgarian secret police agent Francesco Giullino by means of a ricin pellet fired from a specially-designed umbrella.
• 1986 – Desmond Tutu becomes the first black man to lead the Anglican Church in South Africa.
• 2008 – The US Government takes control of the two largest mortgage financing companies in the US, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

Deaths

• 1978 – Keith Moon, English drummer, songwriter, producer, and actor (The Who and Plastic Ono Band) (b. 1946)
• 1994 – Terence Young, Chinese-English director and screenwriter (b. 1915)
• 1996 – Bibi Besch, Austrian-American actress (b. 1940)
• 2002 – Uziel Gal, German-Israeli gun designer, designed the Uzi (b. 1923)
• 2003 – Warren Zevon, American singer-songwriter (b. 1947)

 Jack the Riper Solved! by IFLS

An amateur investigator has claimed to have identified Jack the Ripper, the archetypal serial killer. The claims are still far from verified, but that hasn’t stopped tabloids declaring the case solved.

Between 1888 and 1891 eleven women were murdered in the Whitchapel area of London. Of these, five are believed to have been committed by the same killer, dubbed Jack the Ripper, while the others may have been the victims of copycats or people they knew.

The new claim is that DNA has been found connecting suspect Aaron Kosminski to the murder of Catherine Eddowes, one of the so-called “canonical five” killed between August 31 and November 9, 1888.

Though it’s been more than 100 years since Jack the Ripper terrorized the streets of London, his crimes survive in the public imagination.

After seeing the movie From Hell, businessman Russell Edwards was intrigued enough by the crimes to have bought a shawl that was supposedly found near Eddowes’ body. The shawl was collected by one of the police officers investigating the crime, though preservation of evidence was more lax in those days.

While other “Ripperologists” have dismissed the shawl as a fake, Edwards believed its Michaelmas flowers were an obscure clue left by the killer warning of his next attack, which occurred on November 8, 1888 at the Eastern Orthodox Churches’ Michaelmas festival.

Edwards had the shawl tested and found not only blood, but also semen. The DNA was too degraded by the passage of time for microsatellite analysis, but Dr. Jari Louhelainen, a senior molecular biology lecturer at Liverpool John Moores University, matched the mitochondrial DNA from the blood to a descendent of Eddowes, using a technique he developed for extracting genetic material from cloth.

Edwards has also claimed to have matched the DNA from cells in the semen to a descendent of Kosminski’s sister. Kosminski was long considered one of the main suspects for the crimes. He lived in the areas where they occurred and was known for his severe mental illness and his misogyny. In addition, the crimes of the original Ripper stopped after he was committed to a mental institution. 

Edwards is claiming the evidence as conclusive, but has chosen to publish his claims in a book and the frequently anti-science Daily Mail, rather than a scientific publication.

Last Week’s Birthdays

Richard Gere (65), Chris Tucker (43), Lily Tomlin (75), Barry Gibb (68), Gloria Estefan (57), Keanu Reeves (50), Salma Hayek (48), Charlie Sheen (49), Raquel Welch (74), Michael Keaton (53), Rose McGowan (41) and Pippa Middleton (31).

2013 League Table

{confidential}

Next week peeps!

7th September 2014 | Categories: 2014 | Leave A Comment »

Dead Pool 31st August 2014

Cor Blimey Governor! We have a points bonanza this week, all  thanks to Dead Pool favourite, Richard Attenborough who died last week at the age of 90, thus bestowing 60 points to the following people: Barry, Millie, Tasha, Ceri, Claire, Stu and Neil. Well done all of you, commiserations to Justine and Christine who had his brother David, but it’s still early days, who knows what next week will bring, like last week has been a particularly bad week for Bass players, as you will see from the list below:

Look Who You Could Have Had:

• John Fellows Akers, 79, American businessman, President (1983–1989) and CEO (1985–1993) of IBM.
• Philippine de Rothschild, 80, French winemaker.
• Richard Attenborough, 90, English actor (Brighton Rock, The Great Escape, Jurassic Park) and Academy Award-winning film director and producer (Gandhi).
• Leonid Stadnyk, 44, Ukrainian farmer, world’s tallest man claimant, brain haemorrhage.
• Samuel Sadela, 114, Nigerian pastor, unverified claimant for world’s oldest man.
• Jim Petrie, 82, British cartoonist (Minnie the Minx).
• Bill Kerr, 92, South African-born Australian actor and comedian (Hancock’s Half Hour).
• John Anthony Walker, 77, American naval officer, convicted of spying for the Soviet Union.
• Glenn Cornick, 67, British bassist (Jethro Tull), heart failure.
• Tim Williams, 30, American bassist (Suicidal Tendencies).
• Jason Curley, 42, Australian bassist (Tumbleweed).

In Other News

Legendary wrestler Jake “The Snake” Roberts has been admitted to a Las Vegas hospital in intensive care with double pneumonia, according to reports. Roberts was en route to Las Vegas for a promotion on Wednesday when he lapsed into unconsciousness. He was in a coma for 24 hours but has now regained consciousness. Roberts had battled substance abuse problems but had turned his life around in recent months thanks to his association with onetime protege Diamond Dallas Page whom Roberts credited with saving his life. Methinks he spoke too soon! 

Comedian Joan Rivers is in serious condition at a New York hospital a couple of days after she was admitted suffering a cardiac arrest when her breathing stopped during a vocal cord procedure, her family and hospital officials said. The tart-tongued comedienne, 81, has often been criticised for her making insensitive jokes. Last year, she was criticised by some Jewish groups for making jokes about the Holocaust and during this month’s Gaza conflict, she caused fresh controversy when she said that that Palestinian civilians “deserve to be dead”. I’m sure they are  now returning the favour by wishing her a speedy recovery… **Edit: She’s now been placed on full life support, things don’t look too promising for her** 

Talking about the Holocaust, George Galloway, the Bradford West MP was released from hospital on Saturday morning having suffered a suspected broken jaw and rib as well as facial bruising! Neil Masterson, 39, has been accused of shouting about the Holocaust and attacking him. Well done that man, give him an OBE in next year’s honours. The attack upon the much hated Galloway was instigated by comments Galloway recently made about the conflict in Gaza in which he claimed Bradford was an Israel-free zone, looks like he was very wrong about that too.  

In a case of supreme Darwinism, a nine-year-old girl has accidentally shot dead a shooting instructor who was teaching her how to use a powerful Uzi submachine gun. In a case of utter stupidity with an ending that nobody could predict, Charles Vacca was showing the unnamed youngster how to fire the weapon at the Last Stop outdoor shooting range in the Mohave Desert in White Hills, Arizona, when the gun recoiled as she pulled the trigger. Sadly, this is not an uncommon happening in the US, at least 100 children have been involved in accidental shootings between December 2012 and December 2013 where a child has found a firearm at their parents house and accidentally shot a friend, family member or themselves. 

Here are a few names for you to consider for next year. The Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences are handing out honorary lifetime awards to actor/singer Harry Belafonte, Japanese director Hayao Miyazaki,  Irish-born actress Maureen O’Hara and French screenwriter and actor Jean-Claude Carriere. The youngest of this troupe is 73, so lets hope they make it to November to collect their statuette. Previous recipients of the award include actors Eli Wallach and Lauren Bacall, who both died recently, director Francis Ford Coppola, Angelina Jolie and Steve Martin. It doesn’t bode well for any of them… 

On This Day

• 1422 – King Henry V of England dies of dysentery while in France. His son, Henry VI becomes King of England at the age of 9 months.
• 1888 – Mary Ann Nichols is murdered. She is the first of Jack the Ripper‘s confirmed victims.
• 1895 – German Count Ferdinand von Zeppelin patents his Navigable Balloon.
• 1897 – Thomas Edison patents the Kinetoscope, the first movie projector.
• 1968 – Garfield Sobers became the first batsman ever to hit six sixes in a single over of six consecutive balls in first-class cricket.
• 1997 – Diana, Princess of Wales, her companion Dodi Fayed and driver Henri Paul die in a car crash in Paris.

Deaths

• 1422 – Henry V of England (b. 1386)
• 1688 – John Bunyan, English preacher and author (b. 1628)
• 1867 – Charles Baudelaire, French poet and critic (b. 1821)
• 1869 – Mary Ward, Irish scientist (b. 1827)
• 1888 – Mary Ann Nichols, English victim of Jack the Ripper (b. 1845)
• 1969 – Rocky Marciano, American boxer (b. 1923)
• 1973 – John Ford, American actor, director, producer, and screenwriter (b. 1894)
• 1997 – Dodi Fayed, Egyptian film producer (b. 1955)
• 1997 – Diana, Princess of Wales (b. 1961)
• 2012 – Max Bygraves, English-Australian actor and singer (b. 1922)
• 2013 – David Frost, English journalist and game show host (b. 1939)

Last Week’s Birthdays

Steve Guttenberg (59), Dave Chappelle (41), Rupert Grint (26), Stephen Fry (57), Gene Simmons (65), Elvis Costello (60), Billy Ray Cyrus (53), Claudia Schiffer (44), Rachel Bilson (33), Paul Reubens (62), Shania Twain (49), Jack Black (45), Jason Priestley (45), LeAnn Rimes (32), Florence Welch (28), Elliott Gould (76), Rebecca De Mornay (55), John McCain (78), Peggy Lipton (68), Cameron Diaz (42), and Warren Buffett (84).

2013 League Table

[confidential]

Next Week peeps!

31st August 2014 | Categories: 2014 | Leave A Comment »

Dead Pool 24th August 2014

Welcome all, alas, after the highs of last week  we are  dumped to another low. No   points to be awarded and no superstars have committed suicide. But, as always we have plenty of news for you to peruse, plenty to talk about.

Look Who You Could Have Had:

• James Alexander Gordon, 78, British radio broadcaster (BBC Radio 5 Live).
• Don Pardo, 96, American radio and television announcer (Saturday Night Live, Jeopardy!).
• James Foley, 40, American photojournalist, beheading.
• Brian G. Hutton, 79, American actor (King Creole, Last Train from Gun Hill) and film director (Kelly’s Heroes, Where Eagles Dare).
• Candida Lycett Green, 71, British author, pancreatic cancer.
• B. K. S. Iyengar, 95, Indian yogi, founder of Iyengar Yoga, heart attack and renal failure.
• Gerry Anderson, 69, British broadcaster (BBC Northern Ireland).
• Lyndam Gregory, 59, Indian-born British actor (The Archers, Coronation Street, EastEnders), lung cancer.
• Jean Redpath, 77, Scottish folk singer-songwriter, cancer.
• Albert Reynolds, 81, Irish politician, Taoiseach (1992–1994). 

In Other News

Authorities in New York have denied parole to the man who shot dead musician John Lennon in 1980 for the eighth time. Mark Chapman was sentenced to 20 years to life in 1981 after pleading guilty to second-degree murder. Chapman, now 59, shot Lennon four times outside a Manhattan apartment block. Just goes to show, if you shoot an international superstar, you will rot in jail forever, but kill and rape a couple of kids, you will be free after a few years.

Dead Pool favourite, Paul Gascoigne, 47, who has a  long history of problems with alcohol, is believed to have been admitted to Poole hospital last Thursday after being found pissed outside his home. Some of you may have seen the shocking pictures showing a prematurely aged and haggard Gazza being led into the back of an ambulance, a pale shadow of the footballing hero he once was. Could this be his last trip in an ambulance? Let’s wait and find out! 

New figures have shown that terminally ill Britons now make up a nearly one quarter of users of suicide clinics like Dignitas in Switzerland. Only Germany has a higher numbers of ‘suicide tourists’ visiting institutions to end their own lives. Roughly 25 Britons a year make the trip, which is 25 less bodies to scrape off the pavements or 25 less traumatised train drivers, so that can only be a good thing. If you ever feel the need to help someone along in Britain, remember that the 1961 Suicide Act makes it an offence to encourage or assist a suicide or a suicide attempt in England and Wales, fuck knows about Scotland, nobody there lived long enough to try. Anyone doing so could face up to 14 years in prison. So remember when you see someone teetering over the edge of a motorway bridge, shouting ‘Jump’ could mean you end up with your bedmate being called Big Hairy Barbra and you chewing the pillow for a long time! 

Snooker player, Ali Carter is making a rather disappointing recovery from lung cancer. The two-times World Snooker Championship runner-up expects to be back playing soon after finishing an intensive course of chemotherapy. The 35-year-old was diagnosed with lung cancer in May, less than a year after resuming his career having recovered from testicular cancer. Carter also suffers from Crohns disease but is upbeat about his future. Fair play to him. 

Pope Francis has publicly broached the prospect of his own death for the first time, light-heartedly giving himself “two or three years”. The 77-year-old says he may ‘soon be off to the Father’s house’ and would retire if he could no longer perform his duties. While the Pope has not spoken publicly before about when he might meet his maker, a Vatican source said he had previously told those close to him that he thought he only had a few years left, which is only good news to many of you taking part in the Dead Pool. 

In a sure sign of impending doom, the veteran screen star  Debbie Reynolds is to be given a lifetime achievement award by the Screen Actors Guild. The 82-year-old, whose credits include Singin’ In The Rain and TV sitcom Will and Grace, will receive her accolade at the SAG awards ceremony on 25th January, let’s hope she lasts until then. Reynolds, mother of Star Wars actress Carrie Fisher, has been in showbusiness for 66 years and kick-started her career at the age of 16 by winning the Miss Burbank competition with the hope of winning a blouse and a scarf. Can’t see many girls doing that nowadays, much easier to purloin them from TopShop.

On This Day

• 79 – Mount Vesuvius erupts. The cities of Pompeii, Herculaneum, and Stabiae are buried in volcanic ash.
• 1456 – The printing of the Gutenberg Bible is completed.
• 1875 – Captain Matthew Webb became first person to swim the English Channel
• 1891 – Thomas Edison patents the motion picture camera.
• 1909 – Workers start pouring concrete for the Panama Canal.
• 1932 – Amelia Earhart becomes the first woman to fly across the United States non-stop (from Los Angeles to Newark, New Jersey).
• 1981 – Mark David Chapman is sentenced to 20 years to life in prison for murdering John Lennon.
• 2006 – The International Astronomical Union (IAU) redefines the term “planet” such that Pluto is now considered a dwarf planet.

Deaths

• 1217 – Eustace the Monk, French pirate (b. 1170)
• 2001 – Jane Greer, American actress and singer (b. 1924)
• 2013 – Mike Winters, English comedian and actor (b. 1926)

Four Diseases You Should Be More Afraid Of Than Ebola by KoA

The current outbreak of the Ebola Virus in West Africa is the largest in history, and has already killed over 1200 people. Of course, when the disease threatened to take to America, a cure was miraculously found, but let’s not get into that argument, we know how racist the States are, even stealing a bottle of pop will ensure a black man will end up with nine bullets in him, two to the head, execution stylee. But if you think Ebola is shit scary, look closer to home. Check out these 5 diseases that could easily cause a global health emergency:

Influenza 

Around 3-5 million people around the world will become severely ill due to the flu virus every year, resulting in 250,000-300,000 deaths. That’s an incredible amount of people, even though the mortality rate is fairly low. However, this is just the seasonal flu, what about those seriously nasty strains we’ve all heard about, like H5N1 and H7N9? These strains of bird flu are highly virulent and have a 60% mortality rate in humans, luckily they don’t spread readily from human to human, yet, but a small mutation is all it takes!! 

Diarrhoea 

Remember that bout of the shits you had, wasn’t too pleasant was it, and that was just a little spat, probably caused by the kebab and 8 pints of wine you had. But diarrhoea is the number one cause of death in children under 5 around the globe. It affects over 1.7 billion people each year, resulting in the deaths of 801,000 children alone. Diarrhoea depletes the body of necessary fluids and salts and if this is left unchecked, the infected will die of severe dehydration. The main cause of diarrheic disease is rotavirus in children and norovirus for adults, though there are other bacterial and viral causes as well. Cholera, Salmonella, Nipah virus, and hemorrhagic fever including Ebola, Lassa, and Marbug are all noteworthy sources of highly infectious diseases that cause diarrhoea.

Tuberculosis 

TB is a bacterial infection that affects two billion people a year, resulting in 1.3 million deaths. Once exposed, an individual might not become sick right away. In fact, the bacteria can remain dormant for several years before causing illness. Though TB doesn’t spread while in this latent phase, it can become an active infection at any time. Once symptoms begin, the lungs are the primary affected organ. What might begin as a nagging cough or fatigue can easily turn into sharp chest pain and coughing up blood. If TB affects other parts of the body, it can lead to joint pain, impede liver or kidney function, cause meningitis, or fatal inflammation and fluid buildup around the heart. But we’ve all been inoculated as kids, I have the scar to prove it! Unfortunately, this airborne bacterium is on the rise due to those stupid Anti-vaccers and many strains are now becoming resistant to most treatments. The mortality rate for drug-resistant TB is about 80%. As drug resistance continues to grow, TB could affect even more people and result in even more deaths.

Antimicrobial Resistance 

Antibiotics have been one of the best advancements in medical history, but irresponsible use has turned this blessing into a curse. When not taken correctly, the medication can’t kill all of the bacteria. The ones that are left have now been exposed to the drug, but didn’t die from it. By not taking the full course of antibiotics, that mutation that confers resistance has been selected for, and those bacteria will continue to proliferate. When they go on to cause an illness again, they are not so easily defeated. That has basically been the story of how things like Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) have become the problems that they are today. Over two million people develop a drug-resistant infection each year, resulting in over 23,000 deaths. The World Health Organisation (WHO) released a report in April 2014 stating that “a post-antibiotic era, far from being an apocalyptic fantasy, is instead a very real possibility for the 21st Century.” Traditional treatments are meeting resistance for a number of infections and diseases including (but most definitely not limited to) urinary tract infections, tuberculosis, malaria, HIV, influenza, Clostridium difficile (C. diff), and gonorrhoea. In fact, there have been reports in several countries that gonorrhoea has even become resistant all forms of treatment. So be careful if you fuck around!

Last Week’s Birthdays

Robert De Nero (71), Belinda Carlisle (56), Sean Penn (54), Robert Redford (78), Denis Leary (57), Christian Slater (45), Edward Norton (45), Kevin Dillon (49), Matthew Perry (45), Bill Clinton (68), Robert Plant (66), Kenny Rogers (76), Kim Cattrall (58), Carrie-Anne Moss (47), Hayden Panettiere (24), Usain Bolt (28), Tori Amos (51), Ty Burrell (47) and Kirsten Wiig (41).

2013 League Table

[confidential]

Next Week peeps!

24th August 2014 | Categories: 2014 | Leave A Comment »

Dead Pool 17th August 2014

Afternoon all. With  the sad loss of Robin Williams last week, this is one of those times that I don’t particularly like being the editor of this little publication, but onwards we must go. Obviously nobody had him on their lists, just goes to show how unexpected his death was and how loved he was by everyone, nobody picks the people they really like after all…

But as I said, time waits for no man, and it’s my duty to dole out the points nevertheless. Paula was the only one this year to have Lauren Bacall on her list, well done her. 81 points and off her duck for this year. As was pointed out to me earlier this week, with the death of Lauren Bacall, everyone who is named on Madonna’s song Vogue has now died! Sounds like she’s doing better than the rest of us at this little game. With little over four months left to go, we’re all struggling a bit, more than half of us are yet to score! Worry not though, Winter is coming…

Look Who You Could Have Had:

• J. J. Murphy, 86, Northern Irish actor (Mickybo and Me, Angela’s Ashes, Game of Thrones).
• Ed Nelson, 85, American actor (Gunsmoke, Murder, She Wrote, Peyton Place), heart failure.
• Raymond Berthillon, 90, French ice cream manufacturer (Berthillon).
• Robin Williams, 63, American comedian and Academy Award-winning film (Good Will Hunting), television (Mork & Mindy), and voice (Aladdin) actor, suicide by hanging.
• Joe Viskocil, 61, American visual effects artist (Star Wars, Apollo 13), Academy Award winner (Independence Day), complications from multiple organ failure.
• Arlene Martel, 78, American actress (Star Trek, Hogan’s Heroes, The Twilight Zone), heart attack.
• Lauren Bacall, 89, American Tony Award-winning stage (Applause, Woman of the Year) and film (To Have and Have Not, The Mirror Has Two Faces) actress, stroke.

In Other News

The ongoing saga of Casey Kasem is still progressing. The latest news is that his body is heading to Europe, specifically Oslo, as reported by Norwegian newspaper VG. A government official told the newspaper that an application to inter the remains of the DJ at the city has been lodged. Nobody seems to know why Oslo has been chosen, nobody in the Kasem family have ties to Norway whatsoever, but as we know, Kasem’s widow is somewhat unhinged. Let’s watch and see how it all unfolds! 

Talking about Norway, the most prestigious international tournament in chess, The Chess Olympiad in Tromsøat, in which the world’s top players compete alongside amateurs to win honours for their country, has ended on a sombre note after two players died suddenly within hours of each other, one while he was in the middle of a match. Kurt Meier, 67, a Swiss-born member of the Seychelles team, collapsed on Thursday afternoon during his final match of the marathon two-week contest. Despite immediate medical attention at the scene he died later in hospital. Hours later, a player from Uzbekistan who has not yet been named was found dead in his hotel room. The Norwegian police and the event’s organisers said on Friday they were not treating the deaths as suspicious…  

In a boon to music, Céline Dion has cancelled all concert dates, including a major upcoming tour, in order to care for her husband, their family, and associated health issues. The singer will postpone all show business activities for the indefinite future, explaining that the day-to-day challenges were just too much. Dion’s main concern is her husband, 72-year-old René Angélil, who had a cancerous tumour removed last December. Our concern is that she returns to the stage. But Dion is herself fighting an undisclosed illness. It has caused “inflammation in her throat muscles”, there’s a crass joke there, I’ll let you make it.  

That little cunt, Justin Bieber, has agreed to take anger management classes after pleading guilty to careless driving and resisting arrest in Miami. The ‘singer’ was held by police in Florida in January after a street drag race. Prosecutors agreed to drop a charge of driving under the influence in exchange for the guilty pleas. Bieber’s also agreed to pay court fees and give £30,000 to charity. A very lenient sentence indeed, I’d have had him castrated and force fed his little cock and balls to him in front of his adoring fans, who he has such disdain for he spits at them. Cunt!  

Following the cancellation of six tour dates, details of Rick Parfitts medical condition have been revealed. Results from tests confirm that the Status Quo members health was recently impaired by a problem regarding his quadruple heart bypass in 1997. Tests carried out at the Royal Brompton Hospital in London showed that one of the grafts inserted during his original quadruple heart bypass had become “furred”, but the situation “has been remedied by the insertion of a stent and Rick is now recuperating.” Woo! 

Frank Maloney, the transsexual former boxing promoter who guided Lennox Lewis to the world heavyweight title, tried to kill herself as she struggled to cope with her secret life, it has emerged. The 61-year-old – now known as Kellie – took a mixture of alcohol and prescription pills following the collapse of her marriage due to her wish to live as a woman. Maloney’s comments come after she went public with her new female identity. As a former Ukip candidate who is twice married and has three daughters, said she had been living as a female for more than a year. Fair play to her, but let’s be honest here, I wouldn’t shag her.  

Nobody has ever heard of this cunt, but Ethan Zuckerman has a lot to answer for. He’s the chap who invented and programmed the vexatious form of online advertising now known as the Pop-up!!! Last week he admitted his sin and even admits that he’s frustrated by them himself. I’ve never wished ill will upon anyone, but if anyone runs into this arsehole, do the world a favour.  

And finally, Wang, the last polar bear in Africa, has died at Johannesburg Zoo after months of “pining” for his longtime mate who passed away earlier this year, the bear’s keepers have said. The 30-year-old polar bear was said to be heartbroken and depressed after the death of a female named GeeBee in January. The two bears had shared an enclosure for 27 years. Wang was suffering heart and liver failure, and on Wednesday veterinarians made the “very tough decision” to euthanise him. Thankfully, Johannesburg Zoo officials say the polar bears will not be replaced, a decision made in partnership with other African zoos, which is the first bit of common sense I have heard anyone speak this year. Fucking Polar Bears in Africa, you’re having a laugh! 

On This Day

• 1771 – Edinburgh botanist James Robertson makes the first recorded ascent of Ben Nevis in Scotland.
• 1896 – Bridget Driscoll is run over by a Benz car in the grounds of The Crystal Palace, London, the world’s first motoring fatality.
• 1908 – Fantasmagorie, the first animated cartoon, created by Émile Cohl, is shown in Paris, France.
• 1980 – Azaria Chamberlain disappears, at Ayers Rock, Northern Territory, probably taken by a dingo, leading to what was then the most publicized trial in Australian history.
• 1982 – The first Compact Discs (CDs) are released to the public in Germany.
• 1998 – Lewinsky scandal: US President Bill Clinton admits in taped testimony that he had an “improper physical relationship” with White House intern Monica Lewinsky. On the same day he admits before the nation that he “misled people” about the relationship.
• 2008 – American swimmer Michael Phelps becomes the first person to win eight gold medals in one Olympic Games.

Deaths

• 1983 – Ira Gershwin, American songwriter (b. 1896)
• 1987 – Rudolf Hess, German politician (b. 1894)

The Biggest Threats to Human Existence: Part 2 by KoA

1. Bioengineered Pandemic 

Natural pandemics have killed more people than wars. However, natural pandemics are unlikely to be existential threats: there are usually some people resistant to the pathogen, and the offspring of survivors would be more resistant. Evolution also does not favour parasites that wipe out their hosts, which is why syphilis went from a virulent killer to a chronic disease as it spread in Europe.

Unfortunately we can now make diseases nastier, and we all know some cunt out there will have a go. One of the more famous examples is how the introduction of an extra gene in Mousepox – the mouse version of Smallpox – made it far more lethal and able to infect vaccinated individuals. Recent work on bird flu has demonstrated that the contagiousness of a disease can be deliberately boosted.

Right now the risk of somebody deliberately releasing something devastating is low. But as biotechnology gets better and cheaper, more groups will be able to make diseases worse, and there’s nothing we can do to stop them!!

Most work on bio-weapons have been done by governments looking for something controllable, because wiping out humanity is not militarily useful, yet. But there are always some people who might want to do things  because they can. Others have higher purposes. For instance, the Aum Shinrikyo cult tried to hasten the apocalypse using bio-weapons beside their more successful nerve gas attack. Some people think the Earth would be better off without humans, and so on…

The number of fatalities from bioweapon and epidemic outbreaks attacks looks like it has a power-law distribution – most attacks have few victims, but a few kill many. Given current numbers the risk of a global pandemic from bioterrorism seems very small. But this is just bioterrorism: governments have killed far more people than terrorists with bio-weapons (up to 400,000 may have died from the second world war Japanese bio-war program). And as technology gets more powerful in the future nastier pathogens become easier to design. Yay!

Last Week’s Birthdays

Jennifer Lawrence (24), Ben Affleck (42), Madonna (56), Steve Carell (52), Mila Kunis (31), Steve Martin (69), Halle Berry (48), Hulk Hogan (61), Antonio Banderas (54), Debra Messing (46), Chris Hemsworth (31), George Hamilton (75), James Cameron (60), Julie Newmar (81), Princess Anne (64), Magic Johnson (55), David Crosby (73), Pete Sampras (43) and Rosanna Arquette (55).

2013 League Table

[confidential]

Next week peeps!

17th August 2014 | Categories: 2014 | Leave A Comment »

Dead Pool 10th August 2014

Afternoon poolers, we have a point scorer!!! Dave guessed that Chapman Pincher would die and thus gains himself 50 points! Well done that man, boosting himself up to 9th place!  I have also taken the time to double check the lists for missed names and I have done a disservice to two of you. Martin and Liz, your scores are now where they should be as I missed that you had Dora Bryan, Sally Farmiloe and Sid Caesar respectively, all of which we covered in previous iterations of the newsletter. Remember, a lot of you have obscure names on your lists, so if you see that I have missed one of yours, please say so. I’m good, but not infallible.

Look Who You Could Have Had:

• Billie Letts, 76, American novelist (Where the Heart Is).
• Jake Hooker, 61, Israeli-born American pop musician (Arrows), songwriter (“I Love Rock ‘n’ Roll“) and producer.
• James Brady, 73, American government official, White House Press Secretary (1981–1989), shot during Reagan assassination attempt (1981).
• Chapman Pincher, 100, British journalist and historian.
• Marilyn Burns, 65, American actress (The Texas Chain Saw Massacre).
• Dharmesh Tiwari, 63, Indian actor (Mahabharat), diabetes.
• Danny Murphy, 58, American actor (There’s Something About Mary, Me, Myself and Irene), cancer.
• Menahem Golan, 85, Israeli producer (The Delta Force, Death Wish II).
• Christian Falk, 52, Swedish singer and bassist (Imperiet), pancreatic cancer.
• Charles Keating, 72, British Emmy Award-winning actor (All My Children, Another World), cancer.

In Other News

The ongoing saga of Casey Kasem is still in the news. His remains  are still missing, presumed to be in a funeral home somewhere in Canada. But the latest news is that his wife has now lost support from her lawyers who have left her without legal representation and a large bill because she’s a mad cow. Jane Kasem is now being turned into a recluse with mounting debts over the debacle, all because she wants to hide the fact she abused the voice of Shaggy during his final years. Takes all sorts…

In a twist of misfortune, the man suspected to be responsible for stealing Michael Schumacher’s medical files has been found dead! The man, who has not been named, was a manager at Swiss air rescue firm Rega and had been arrested on Tuesday but denied the accusations. However, there must have been some guilt there as he was later found hanged in his cell on Wednesday morning. The stolen records were apparently being offered to media across Europe for 50,000 euros (£40,000, $68,000). Not a lot of money to die over, twat.

Singer Lady GaGa was hospitalised due to altitude sickness last week. She sought medical attention after performing at her ‘artRave: The ARTPOP Ball’ tour in Denver, Colorado, where altitude sickness is common due to thinner air. I suppose we can forgive her delicateness, the average altitude mean of Colorado is twice the height of Snowdon, no wonder its called the Mile High City! In the photo taken from her hospital bed, a wide-eyed Gaga can be seen with her oxygen mask upside down, but she is expected to perform at her next concert in Seattle on Friday, hopefully the right way up.

On This Day

• 1519 – Ferdinand Magellan‘s five ships set sail from Seville to circumnavigate the globe. The Basque second in command Juan Sebastián Elcano will complete the expedition after Magellan’s death in the Philippines.
• 1675 – The foundation stone of the Royal Greenwich Observatory in London, England is laid.
• 1793 – The Musée du Louvre is officially opened in Paris, France.
• 1948 – Candid Camera makes its television debut.
• 1969 – A day after murdering Sharon Tate and four others, members of Charles Manson‘s cult kill Leno and Rosemary LaBianca.
• 2003 – The highest temperature ever recorded in the United Kingdom – 38.5 °C (101.3 °F) in Kent, England. It is the first time the United Kingdom has recorded a temperature over 100 °F (38 °C).
• 2003 – Yuri Malenchenko becomes the first person to marry in space.

Deaths

• 1932 – Rin Tin Tin, American acting dog (b. 1918)
• 1993 – Euronymous, Norwegian singer, guitarist, and producer (Mayhem) (b. 1968)
• 2008 – Isaac Hayes, American singer-songwriter, pianist, producer, and actor (b. 1942)
• 2012 – Carlo Rambaldi, Italian special effects artist (b. 1925)

Executions 101 by KoA

With all the recent furore in the media over the botched executions in America, I thought we’d take a look at how we used to do it over here in Good Old Blighty. As it happens, it was 50 years this month that the last executions were carried out in the UK.

Gwynne Evans and Peter Allen, two petty criminals who killed a man in a bungled burglary, were the last two people to be executed for murder in the Britain.

Justice came swiftly. The trial of 24-year-old Evans and Allen, who was 21, began on 23rd June at Manchester Assizes. On 7th July the men were found guilty and sentenced under the 1957 Homicide Act to suffer death “in the manner prescribed by law”.

Their appeal was heard just two weeks later – and dismissed the next day. A final appeal for clemency was rejected by the Home Secretary on 11th August. Less than five weeks elapsed by then. The speed of the process, even with two lives at stake, was not unusual. A delay covering three Sundays between sentencing and execution was all the law stipulated.

In the UK, an executioner and his assistant were expected to carry out their grisly duties in moments. On the stroke of 8am they would enter the condemned cell, strap the prisoner’s arms behind his back and lead him to the gallows. The whole procedure often took less than 10 seconds from the hangmen entering the cell to the prisoner dropping to his death! A far cry from the two hours endured by last week’s Joseph Wood by lethal injection. I know which one I’d rather suffer.

Last Week’s Birthdays

Tony Bennett (88), Martin Sheen (74), Martha Stewart (73), James Hatfield (51), Evangeline Lilly (35), Billy Bob Thornton (59), Barack Obama (53), Loni Anderson (69), M. Night Shyamalan (44), Geri Halliwell (42), Michelle Yeoh (52), David Duchovny (53), Charlize Theon (39), Dustin Hoffman (77), Roger Federer (33), Princess Beatrice (26), Sam Elliott (70), Melanie Griffith (57), Rhona Mitra (38), Eric Bana (46), Gillian Anderson (46), Audrey Tautou (38), Tobin Bell (72),  Barbara Windsor (77), John Landis (64) and Anna Kendrick (29).

2013 League Table

[confidential]

Next week peeps!

10th August 2014 | Categories: 2014 | Leave A Comment »

Dead Pool 3rd August 2014

Welcome all to yet another edition of the Dead Pool Newsletter, and for once a worthy celebrity for our attentive needs has decided to die before I have finished writing the bloody thing and not after I have pressed the send button! I’d like to take this opportunity to thank all those who have sent interesting articles for the newsletter, it’s very appreciated, and you will see them slowly trickling through to print eventually, so please keep sending them in! I’d rather have a backlog of stories than sitting here with writers block crying into my wine. Without further ado…

Look Who You Could Have Had:

• Edith Ritchie, 104, Scottish centenarian, one half of the world’s oldest twins.
• Sir Richard MacCormac, 75, British modernist architect, cancer.
• Sally Farmiloe, 60, South African-born British actress (Howards’ Way), breast cancer.
• James Shigeta, 85, American actor (Flower Drum Song, Die Hard, Mulan).
• Dick Smith, 92, American special effects make-up artist (The Godfather, The Exorcist, Amadeus), natural causes.
• Kenny Ireland, 68, Scottish actor (Benidorm), brain cancer.
• Theodore Van Kirk, 93, American military officer, Army Major, navigator and last surviving crew member on the Enola Gay.
• King Robbo, English underground graffiti artist, complications from a head injury.
• Ross Burden, 45, New Zealand celebrity chef (MasterChef, Ready Steady Cook, MasterChef New Zealand), infection from bone marrow transplant.
• Mike Smith, 59, British television and radio presenter (BBC Radio 1), complications from heart surgery.
• Norman Cornish, 94, English artist.
• Michael Johns, 35, Australian singer-songwriter (American Idol), blood clot.

In Other News 

Rock band Status Quo have been forced to cancel six concerts on their European tour because of illness affecting guitarist Rick Parfitt. The group had been due to play in Pula, Croatia, where Parfitt, 65, is now in hospital receiving treatment. No details have been given about his condition but the band’s manager, Simon Porter, said Status Quo did not “cancel shows lightly”. “In this instance we have no option but to follow medical advice,” he said. Parfitt had a quadruple heart bypass in 1997 after doctors said he was in danger of dying as a result of his lifestyle. After surgery, Parfitt said he was not planning on becoming a “born-again Christian” and would still have the “odd pint”. Unbelievably, the band have recorded 64 British hit singles since 1968, more than any other band. 

Actor Orlando Bloom allegedly took a swing at the Canadian ‘singer’ Justin Bieber at a restaurant in Ibiza in the early hours of Wednesday morning. Details as to what kicked off the mini-fight are hazy. Some say Bloom refused to shake Bieber’s hand and then tried to land a punch as he walked away. Others, that Bieber provoked Bloom with a comment about sleeping with the Lord of the Rings actor’s ex-wife, the model Miranda Kerr. What happened after, however, is well documented. In a video of the aftermath, Bieber can be heard shouting, “What’s up, bitch?” to his supposed love-rival. Not content with that zinger, he then took to Instagram to post a picture of Miranda Kerr in a bathing suit, followed by another of Bloom crying. As with all the best social media missives, the post of Kerr in her bikini has since been deleted. Nobody comes out of this with their dignity intact. Not weak-punch-cry-baby Legolas, nor baby-baby-baby-instagram-burn Bieber. However my estimation of Bloom has increased sevenfold.  

Not that you would know the chap, but Kevin McGroarty, a longtime veteran of the advertising industry died on July 22nd. He had a certain way with words as his farewell proved as he announced that he’d recently moved into his “new address” at Mount Olivet Cemetery. News of his relocation is among the many gems in McGroarty’s obituary, written by the man himself. About 300 people attended McGroarty’s memorial service Monday, though there’s no mention how many were present for the “brief rant of how the government screwed up all of the Bugs Bunny Cartoons trying to censor violence” which was presented by his attorney.

On This Day

• 1492 – Christopher Columbus sets sail from Palos de la Frontera, Spain.
• 1527 – The first known letter from North America is sent by John Rut while at St. John’s, Newfoundland.
• 1977 – Tandy Corporation announces the TRS-80, one of the world’s first mass-produced personal computers.

Deaths

• 1929 – Emile Berliner, German-American inverter and businessman, invented the phonograph (b. 1851)
• 1966 – Lenny Bruce, American comedian (b. 1925)
• 1983 – Carolyn Jones, American actress and singer, best known for the role of Morticia Addams in the television series The Addams Family (b. 1930)
• 2002 – Carmen Silvera, Canadian-English actress, best known for her starring role in British television programme, ‘Allo ‘Allo! as Edith Artois. (b. 1922)
• 2011 – Bubba Smith, American football player and actor, his best known role was as Moses Hightower in the first six Police Academy movies. (b. 1945)

Struck by Lightning by KoA

It’s a type of death that is apparently so rare it has become a metaphor for extremely bad luck. A lightning strike hit Venice beach in Los Angeles on Sunday afternoon, killing a man in his 20s, leaving another in a critical condition and injuring a dozen more.

According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, it was the 15th death by lightning strike in the US this year. However, it represents a steady decrease year-on-year, possibly due to the fall in the numbers of people working outdoors and improvements in health and safety. In 2006, the overall number for the year was 48 and stood at 35 by this time in July.

Most victims are men, with 223 male deaths compared with 53 female deaths since 2006. Perhaps Thor hates men more than women… Thirteen of the total died on beaches, so you now know where not to be during a storm. 

Almost two-thirds were people enjoying outdoor activities, although the common belief that golfers make up a high number of victims of lightning does not hold up when you look at the figures. Between 2006 and 2013, fishermen accounted for more than three times as many deaths as golfers, which is a shame as golfers deserve death more than fishermen just for wearing stupid clothes in my book.

In the eight years since 2006, the US have  recorded 30 fishing deaths, 16 camping deaths and 14 boating deaths from lightning strikes. Of the sports activities, football saw the highest number of deaths with 12, compared with golf’s eight fatalities. Twelve people were killed working in gardens and 14 people died working on a farm. It’s a shame that the lighting hasn’t taken out a few more Premiership footballers if you ask me…

Summer is the peak time for lightning deaths. More than 70% occurred in June, July and August, with Saturdays and Sundays the most deadly. 

But just because these numbers seem a lot does not mean it is common. NOAA puts the odds of being killed by lightning in any given year at 1 in 1.9m and the odds of being struck in your lifetime at 1 in 12,000. In comparison, the odds for winning the jackpot on the Lotto is 1 in 13,983,816. But you would have the same chance of being born with Downs Syndrome or hitting a hole in one at 1 in 12,000 too. 

The UK has fewer deaths from lightning strikes. According to the tornado and storm research organisation (Torro) database, 30 to 60 people are struck by lightning each year, with an average annual death toll of less than five. Lightning strikes tend to be concentrated in the south-east, Yay! Death to all Londeners! because of the warmer average temperatures. East Anglia is most likely to experience thunderstorms, according to the Met Office, and north-west Scotland the least likely.

So, if you intend to stay alive during the next thunder storm, don’t play go fishing around Norwich this month! 

Last Week’s Birthdays

Dean Cain (48), J.K. Rowling (49), Wesley Snipes (52), Lisa Kudrow (51), Laurence Fishburne (53), Arnold Schwarzenegger (67), Paul Anka (73), Wes Craven (75), Kevin Smith (44), Edward Furlong (37), Sam Worthington (38), Jason Monma (35), Sam Mendes (49), Michael Biehn (58), Christopher Nolan (44), Hilary Swank (40),  Jean Reno (66), Richard Linklater (54), Frances de la Tour (70), Carel Struycken (66), Wil Wheaton (42), David Warner (73) and Nikolaj Coster-Waldau (44).

2013 League Table

[confidential]

Next week peeps!

3rd August 2014 | Categories: 2014 | Leave A Comment »

Dead Pool 27th July 2014

Afternoon all, bit of a slow week I’m afraid, but who are we to let that get us down?! So, in a fit of utter malaise I’m going to down a bottle of vino and write a lot of what most of you will describe as piffle. Hey, what’s new I hear you say… Onwards and upwards!

Look Who You Could Have Had:

• Sir Nick Scheele, 70, British automotive manufacturing executive, President and CEO of Jaguar Cars (1992–1999) and Ford Motor Company (2001–2005).
• Dora Bryan, 91, British film, television and stage actress (A Taste of Honey, Last of the Summer Wine).
• Joseph Wood, 55, American murderer, subject of botched execution, lethal injection.
• Karl Albrecht, 94, German billionaire grocery executive, co-founder of Aldi.

In Other News

In a terrible twist of fate, a pine tree planted in Los Angeles to commemorate the late-Beatles star George Harrison has died – after being consumed by beetles. Planted as a sapling in 2004 near the Griffith Observatory, the tree stood 10-feet high but died recently as a result of an insect infestation by bark beetles and ladybugs. The George Harrison Tree was chosen as an appropriate memorial for the Beatle, who died of lung cancer in L.A. in 2001 at the age of 58, because of his love of plants, gardening and nature. L.A. councilman Tom LaBonge, who represents the area, said that the tree would be replanted. He said Harrison, who had a well-developed sense of humour, “likely would have been amused by the irony”. I reckon Paul McCartney should be worried too, he looks like a piece of treen nowadays.

Good old Michael Schumacher is able to  communicate with his family by moving his eyelids, and could return home by the end of the month according to reports. In what can only be called a remarkable turnaround for the Formula 1 champion, doctors believe that he’ll be able to sit upright in an advanced wheelchair which he can control via his mouth within weeks! I bet he’s thrilled by the prospect. Someone do the guy a favour and smother him with a pillow, I know I’d prefer it, plus we’d score a few points!

Double Olympic gold medallist Mo Farah has withdrawn from the Commonwealth Games in Glasgow after failing to recover from a recent illness. The 31 year old was set to run both the 5k and 10k in Scotland but couldn’t be fucked it seems. I know how he feels, sometimes I find it too hard to get up from the couch to fetch another packet of hobnobs and a cup of tea, let alone run in a big circle for hours for no apparent reason. The Team England athlete said it was a “tough decision”, adding: “The sickness I had two weeks ago was a big setback.” Not once actually saying what the illness was, probably had a spicy kebab I expect.

The continuing saga of the missing Kasem is still ongoing. As reported in a newsflash in last week’s newsletter, our US super sleuth is now hot on the trail of Casey Kasem’s missing corpse. It seems that his remains were taken from a funeral home in Tacoma by his widow, so his distraught kids have no idea where the rotting clump of meaty flesh and bone is now residing. Asked why Casey’s widow, Jean Kasem, might be hiding his father’s corpse from his children, Mike Kasem said that she’s “demonstrated what we have known for 30 years: She’s bat-shit crazy.” It is thought that the blob that used to be one of America’s most famous DJ’s and the voice of many of our favourite cartoon characters is somewhere in Canada.

On This Day

• 1694 – A Royal charter is granted to the Bank of England.
• 1865 – Welsh settlers arrive at Chubut in Argentina.
• 1866 – The first permanent transatlantic telegraph cable is successfully completed, stretching from Valentia Island, Ireland, to Heart’s Content, Newfoundland.
• 1890 – Vincent van Gogh shoots himself and dies two days later.
• 1921 – Researchers at the University of Toronto led by biochemist Frederick Banting prove that the hormone insulin regulates blood sugar.
• 1929 – The Geneva Convention of 1929, dealing with treatment of prisoners-of-war, is signed by 53 nations.
• 1940 – The animated short A Wild Hare is released, introducing the character of Bugs Bunny.
• 1949 – Initial flight of the de Havilland Comet, the first jet-powered airliner.
• 1981 – On Coronation Street, Ken Barlow marries Deirdre Langton, which proves to be a national event scoring massive viewer numbers for the show.
• 1987 – RMS Titanic Inc. begins the first expedited salvage of wreckage of the RMS Titanic.
• 2002 – Ukraine airshow disaster: A Sukhoi Su-27 fighter crashes during an air show at Lviv, Ukraine killing 85 and injuring more than 100 others, the largest air show disaster in history.

Deaths

• 1981 – William Wyler, French-American director, producer, and screenwriter (b. 1902)
• 1984 – James Mason, English actor, producer, and screenwriter (b. 1909)
• 2003 – Bob Hope, English-American actor, singer, and producer (b. 1903)
• 2012 – Tony Martin, American actor and singer (b. 1913)

The Biggest Threats to Human Existence: Part 1 by KoA

1.Nuclear War 

While only two nuclear weapons have been used in war so far – at Hiroshima and Nagasaki during the Second World War – and nuclear stockpiles are down from their the peak they reached in the cold war, it is a mistake to think that nuclear war is impossible. In fact, it’s probably a massive option at the moment since the downing of Flight 17 over the Ukraine.

The Cuban missile crisis was very close to turning nuclear. If we assume one such event every 69 years and a one in three chance that it might go all the way to being nuclear war, the chance of such a catastrophe increases to about one in 200 per year.

Worse still, the Cuban missile crisis was only the most well-known case. The history of Soviet-US nuclear deterrence is full of close calls and dangerous mistakes. The actual probability has changed depending on international tensions, but it seems implausible that the chances would be much lower than one in 1,000 per year, which is the same probability of you missing your mouth whilst trying to drink wine and type something at the same time. 

A full-scale nuclear war between major powers would kill hundreds of millions of people directly or through the near aftermath – an unimaginable disaster. But that is not enough to make it an existential risk.

Similarly the hazards of fallout are often exaggerated – potentially deadly locally, but globally a relatively limited problem. Cobalt bombs were proposed as a hypothetical doomsday weapon that would kill everybody with fallout, but are in practice hard and expensive to build and they are physically just barely possible, so why go to the extra trouble when an old dirty bomb will do?

The real threat is nuclear winter – that is, soot lofted into the stratosphere causing a multi-year cooling and drying of the world. Modern climate simulations show that it could prevent any agriculture across much of the world for years. If this  scenario occurs billions would starve, leaving only scattered survivors that might be picked off by other threats such as disease. The main uncertainty is how the soot would behave: depending on the kind of soot the outcomes may be very different, and we currently have no good ways of estimating this.

So it seems that the Planet of the Apes scenario is still very possible! 

Last Week’s Birthdays

Robin Williams (63), Willem Dafoe (59), Danny Glover (68), Summer Glau (33), Anna Paquin (32), Jennifer Lopez (45), Monica Lewinsky (41), Daniel Radcliff (25),  Matt LeBlanc (48), Mick Jagger (71), Helen Mirren (69), Kevin Spacey (55), Sandra Bullock (50), Kate Beckinsale (41), Jason Statham (47), Lynda Carter (63), Danny Dyer (37), Woody Harrelson (53), Charisma Carpenter (44), Ronny Cox (76), Slash (49), Terrence Stamp (76), Rhys Ifans (47), Louise Fletcher (80), Stephan Mangan (42), Paloma Faith (33), Ross Kemp (50) and Diana Rigg (76).

2013 League Table

[confidential]

Next week peeps!

27th July 2014 | Categories: 2014 | Leave A Comment »

Dead Pool 20th July 2014

Welcome all, hope you all  haven’t drowned or been  hit by lightning this weekend,  it would be a terrible thing to have to announce to the minions that you had died, clutching vigorously to your toilet seat in a rictus from being hit by the wrath of Thor! Anyhow, as you may have guessed, no points to be awarded this week but plenty to read and discuss and an amusing contribution from Liz, which I hope you will all enjoy!

Look Who You Could Have Had:

• Nadine Gordimer, 90, South African writer (The Conservationist, Burger’s Daughter, July’s People) and anti-apartheid activist, Nobel Prize laureate in Literature (1991).
• Jack Tocco, 87, American mafioso, head of the Detroit Partnership, suspect in the Jimmy Hoffa disappearance, natural causes.
• Alice Coachman, 90, American Olympic champion high jumper (1948), first black woman to win an Olympic gold medal.
• Elaine Stritch, 89, American actress, Tony Award (Elaine Stritch at Liberty) and Emmy Award winner (Law & Order [1993], Elaine Stritch at Liberty [2004], 30 Rock [2007]).
• Henry Hartsfield, 80, American NASA astronaut and test pilot (Columbia), commander for Discovery and Challenger missions, complications from back surgery.
• James Garner, 86, American Hall of Fame actor (Maverick, The Great Escape, The Rockford Files).
• Skye McCole Bartusiak, 21, American actress (The Patriot).

In Other News

Former US secretary of state and Nobel peace prize winner Henry Kissinger underwent heart surgery at a New York City hospital on Tuesday and was resting comfortably, hospital officials said. Kissinger, 91, underwent an aortic valve replacement procedure, according to the New York-Presbyterian Hospital. There are no reports as to how it went, but being 91, it’s not going to end well one would expect. Watch this space! 

You may have been especially observant this week and noticed that the Assisted Dying Bill has been in the news, with notables such as Patrick Stewart and Desmond Tutu backing the bill, for obvious reasons… But what you might have missed was the admission by Chris Woodhead, the former chief inspector of schools, who said that he considered starving and dehydrating himself to death after he was diagnosed with cancer and kidney stones in addition to the motor neurone disease he has had since 2006. The former schools inspector has said previously that he would rather spend his final hours with family enjoying good food and wine and listening to Beethoven than travelling to the Dignitas centre in Switzerland. Let’s hope it gets passed, surely we’ll be able to score a few more points then, also great doctors like Harold Shipman wouldn’t be arrested for doing their jobs…  

DJ Casey Kasem has still not been laid to rest a month after his death due to a legal wrangle amongst his family. A Washington state judge granted a temporary court order to Kasem’s daughter, preventing his second wife from removing his remains from a funeral home in Tacoma. His daughter Kerri Kasem has expressed concerns that his body could be cremated or taken to Canada by his widow Jean, negating the possibility of a post-mortem, even though she herself authorised the retention of food, liquids and medication from him against the wishes of his wife of 34 years, so finding the cause of death isn’t going to be hard. The children from the 82-year-old’s first marriage are hoping to bury him in California in accordance with his final wishes, let’s see what occurs. 

*NEWS FLASH* My super secret intrepid reporter says that Kasem’s body is now officially missing!!! 

On This Day

• 1903 – The Ford Motor Company ships its first car.
• 1944 – World War II: Adolf Hitler survives an assassination attempt led by German Army Colonel Claus von Stauffenberg.
• 1968 – The first International Special Olympics Summer Games are held at Soldier Field in Chicago, Ill, with about 1,000 athletes with intellectual disabilities.
• 1969 – Apollo program: Apollo 11 successfully makes the first manned landing on the Moon in the Sea of Tranquility. Americans Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin become the first humans to walk on the Moon almost 7 hours later.
• 1976 – The American Viking 1 lander successfully lands on Mars.

Deaths

• 1923 – Pancho Villa, Mexican general (b. 1878)
• 1973 – Bruce Lee, American actor and martial artist (b. 1940)
• 2005 – James Doohan, Canadian actor (b. 1920)
• 2011 – Lucian Freud, German-English painter (b. 1922)
• 2012 – Alastair Burnet, English journalist (b. 1928)
• 2012 – Simon Ward, English actor (b. 1941)

A Cheerful Rhyme…. by LizzyWelshCake

Death can be slow
Death can be quick
An evil disease
Or a whack with a stick
Choke on a bone
Skid in the rain
Bleed to death from
An exploding vein
Alcoholic poisoning
From too much rum
Red hot pokers
Shoved up your bum
Hung drawn and quartered
Burnt alive
No water in the pool
When you took a dive
Bitten by a snake
Stood on a rake
Not enough water
Or too much cake
Stayed in the sun
A bit too long
An ambitious sex game
That just went wrong
Only one thing
Left to be said
One day we’ll all
Be fucking dead

Bizarre Victorian Deaths, Part 3 by KoA

6. Torn to pieces by cats

You know how it is. You get a cat, seeking companionship and amusement, and are rewarded with the occasional tea-time display of self-serving affection. It’s charming, so you get another. And one more. Pretty soon, your home makes visitors’ eyes sting. People stop calling by. You let your hair grow wild. You enthusiastically take up muttering. In 1870, in Iran, a rich eccentric lady had cheerfully embarked on much this kind of path, breeding and buying cats to her heart’s content and passing her days in an agreeable if malodorous blur of purrs. Then disaster struck. A fire broke out, and as it swept through the house, the cats were trapped behind a door. Two maids were sent to free them, but the blaze had driven the beasts berserk. The instant the door was opened, they flew at the unfortunate young women, tearing, scratching and biting them in a frenzy. Their injuries were so severe, they both died.

7. Drowned by decorum

The late Victorians and the Edwardians lived through a domestic revolution. Theirs was a bold and exciting age of innovation, groundbreaking discoveries and dramatic scientific changes, many of which altered life at home in profound ways – including some that were terrible and unforeseen. We all know the cliches. The Victorians were a bunch of hidebound, thin-lipped, punctilious, moralising, etiquette-obsessed fun-sponges who would reach for the smelling salts at the mere glimpse of a table leg. It’s a wild generalisation, of course. But sometimes – to revert to another cliche – cliches are true. There’s proof. In 1892, in Bermuda, a party of sailors were returning to their ship by steamboat, having been on shore leave in the capital. Sailors being sailors, there was an argument. The row turned into a fight. One man went overboard. A marine began to strip off to save him, but was ordered immediately to stop by an officer who had spotted a boat with ladies on it nearby. “The ladies in the boat manifested every description of sympathy with the unfortunate man,” reported the Western Daily Press, “but seemed altogether opposed to the idea of an ordinary man springing into the sea unless duly and sufficiently attired in the garments which fashion rather than common sense has decided to be proper.” The increasingly frantic efforts of the sailor to keep afloat suddenly concentrated minds. The officer asked for volunteers. Five men at once leapt to the rescue, but the sailor had drowned.

8. Killed by a drunken bear 

A quick quiz. You are offered a bear to keep as a pet. Do you:

1. Turn it down. It’s cruel to keep a bear as a pet
2. Accept it. Perhaps you might teach it to drink booze too

In Vilna (now Vilnius), then in Russia, in 1891, there was a man who would have answered B). The bear was large but tame, but it had a taste for vodka. One day it bustled into a village tavern and grabbed a keg of vodka. The owner of the inn, Isaack Rabbanovitch, objected, and tried to snatch it back. It would be an understatement to say this was an error. In the chaotic scenes that ensued the infuriated animal hugged to death the tavern keeper, then did the same to his two sons and daughter. The villagers found the drunken animal asleep on the floor in a pool of blood and alcohol, surrounded by its victims. The bear was immediately shot.

Last Week’s Birthdays

Patrick Stewart (74), Harrison Ford (72), Cheech Marin (68), Linda Ronstadt (68), Diane Kruger (38), Will Ferrell (47), Corey Feldman (43), Donald Sutherland (79), David Hasselhof (62), Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall (67), James Brolin (74), Elizabeth McGovern (53), Vin Diesel (47), Kristen Bell (34), Richard Branson (64), John Glenn (93), Jared Padalecki (32), Benedict Cumberbatch (38), Bill Cosby (77), Anna Friel (38), Jackie Earle Haley (53), Harry Dean Stanton (88), Kyle Gass (54), David Mitchell (40), Forest Whitaker (53), Brigitte Nelson (51), Jan-Michael Vincent (70), Celia Imrie (62) and Paul Verhoeven (76).

2013 League Table

[confidential]

Next week peeps!

20th July 2014 | Categories: 2014 | Leave A Comment »

Dead Pool 13th July 2014

Afternoon all, whether you like it or not, welcome once again to the weekly round-up of celebrity demises. As you will see below, lots of what I would call very minor celebrities have actually died, alas, due to their mediocrity nobody has scored a single point! Maybe we’ll have better luck over the next week. So without further ado…

Look Who You Could Have Had:

• Elenor Gordon, 80, Scottish Hall of Fame swimmer, first Scottish Commonwealth Games gold medalist.
• Dave Legeno, 50, British actor (Harry Potter film series), heat stroke.
• Dave Bickers, 76, British motorcross racer and movie stuntman (Octopussy, Escape to Athena), stroke.
• Dick Jones, 87, American actor (Pinocchio, Buffalo Bill, Jr.).
• Alfredo Di Stéfano, 88, Argentine-born Spanish football player and coach (Real Madrid), complications from a heart attack.
• Ken Thorne, 90, British television and film score composer (Superman II, Help!), Academy Award winner (A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum).
• Eileen Ford, 92, American model agency executive, co-founder of Ford Models, complications from meningioma and osteoperosis.
• Zohra Sehgal, 102, Indian actress (Bend It Like Beckham, The Mistress of Spices) and choreographer, heart failure.
• Charlie Haden, 76, American jazz bassist and bandleader, three-time Grammy Award winner (Nocturne, Land of the Sun, The Shape of Jazz to Come), post-polio syndrome.
• Ray Lonnen, 74, British actor (Harry’s Game, The Sandbaggers), cancer.
• Tommy Ramone, 62, Hungarian-born American Hall of Fame record producer and drummer (The Ramones), bile duct cancer.

In Other News

The wife of Michael Schumacher claims the seven-times Formula One world champion is slowly improving after spending six months in a  coma following head injuries sustained in a skiing accident. Corinna Schumacher made her first public appearance this week since her husband was involved in the accident in the French Alpine resort of Méribel. Speaking to German women’s magazine, Neue Post, Corinna was quoted as saying: “He’s getting better, slowly certainly, but in any case he’s improving.” The 45-year-old driver is currently undergoing what is described as “a long phase of rehabilitation”, should we read that as dribbling into his baby food?

Tracy Morgan is suing Walmart over the crash that seriously injured him and killed a fellow comedian. The lawsuit, filed on Thursday in a US district court in New Jersey, claims Walmart was negligent when a driver of one of its tractor-trailers rammed into Morgan’s limousine van. The complaint claims the retail giant should have known the driver had been awake for more than 24 hours, and that his commute of 700 miles from his home in Georgia to work in Delaware was “unreasonable. It also alleges the driver fell asleep at the wheel. Nothing like making money out of your friend’s death Tracy, well done that man!

The former Archbishop of Canterbury, Lord Carey, says he will support legislation that would make it legal for terminally ill people in England and Wales to receive help to end their lives. Lord Carey said that he has dropped his opposition to the Assisted Dying Bill “in the face of the reality of needless suffering”. But the current Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, has called the bill “mistaken and dangerous”. Insisting it would not be “anti-Christian” to change the law, Lord Carey said the current situation risked “undermining the principle of human concern which should lie at the heart of our society”. He added: “Today we face a central paradox. In strictly observing the sanctity of life, the Church could now actually be promoting anguish and pain, the very opposite of a Christian message of hope.” Who’d have thought that a religious leader would actually talk sense for once?!?!

And finally, we’re putting Robin Thicke on suicide watch. Whether due to bad reviews or a feminist backlash, the Blurred Lines singer’s album has sold  fewer copies than ‘worst record of 2013’ and is well on its way to becoming the biggest musical flop of the decade. With 530 copies sold in the UK, 550 sold in Canada and fewer than 54 sold in Australia, Thicke’s latest album Paula has become the laughing stock of the music industry in just one week. Paula’s failure to chart was directly related to Thicke’s use of the album as a plea to get back his recently separated wife, after whom the album is named. She hates it, we hate it, bye Robin, wasn’t all that nice knowing you…

On This Day

• 1919 – The British airship R34 lands in Norfolk, England, completing the first airship return journey across the Atlantic in 182 hours of flight.
• 1923 – The Hollywood Sign is officially dedicated in the hills above Hollywood, Los Angeles, California. It originally reads “Hollywoodland ” but the four last letters are dropped after renovation in 1949.
• 1985 – The Live Aid benefit concert takes place in London, England, United Kingdom and Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, as well as other venues such as Sydney, Australia and Moscow, Russia, Soviet Union.

Deaths

• 1955 – Ruth Ellis, Welsh murderer (b. 1926)
• 2012 – Sage Stallone, American actor (b. 1976)

Serial Killers That Have Never Been Caught by KoA

In a new series suggested by Nickie, we’ll be having a look at those seriously deranged murderers out there who are still at large, still very capable of finding and doing nasty things to you. If that isn’t enough to fuck you over, please read  on!

The Connecticut River Valley killer was/still is an unidentified killer believed responsible for a series of similar knife murders mostly in and around Claremont, New Hampshire in the 1980’s.

In 1985 and 1986, the skeletal remains of two women were recovered within about a thousand feet of each other in a wooded area in Kelleyville, New Hampshire. The condition of the remains made the cause of death difficult to determine, but certain factors pointed to multiple stab wounds. Between the recovery of the first and second bodies, a 36-year old woman was stabbed to death in a frenzied attack inside her home in Saxtons River, Vermont. Ten days later, the remains of the third missing woman were found; postmortem examination revealed evidence of multiple stab wounds.

At this point, investigators began examining prior homicides in the area and found two previous cases, in 1978 and 1981, that further reinforced the presence of a burgeoning serial killer. At the peak of the investigation, and after additional homicides and one non-fatal attack, investigators noted similarities in modus operandi, oft-used dump sites, and specific wound patterns that linked many of the murders, suggesting a common perpetrator.

Seven homicides are commonly cited as being conclusively linked to the Connecticut River Valley killer, all women, all stabbed multiple times.

The killings remained unsolved and had apparently stopped when, late in the evening on August 6, 1988, 22-year old Jane Boroski, seven months pregnant, was returning from a county fair in Keene, New Hampshire, when she stopped at a closed convenience store in West Swanzey to purchase cola from a vending machine. Boroski returned to her car and began drinking the beverage when she took notice of a Jeep Wagoneer parked next to her. Via her rear-view mirror, Boroski then saw the driver of the vehicle walking around the back of her vehicle. He then approached her open window and asked her if the pay phone was working, at which time he immediately grabbed her and pulled her from the vehicle. Boroski struggled, and the man accused her of beating up his girlfriend and asked if she had Massachusetts plates on her car. Boroski responded that she had New Hampshire plates, but this did not deter her attacker, who proceeded to stab her 27 times before driving away and leaving her to die.

Boroski managed to return to her car and drive on Route 32 toward a friend’s house for help. As she neared the house, she noticed a vehicle driving in front of her and realised that it was her attacker. Boroski finally reached her friend’s home at which the occupants immediately came to her aid. Her attacker apparently performed a U-turn and slowly passed by the house as Boroski was tended to before speeding away into the night.

Boroski was treated at the hospital, where it was determined that the attack had resulted in a severed jugular vein, two collapsed lungs, a kidney laceration, and severed tendons in her knees and thumb. Fortunately, Boroski’s baby survived, although not without complications; Boroski’s daughter would later be diagnosed with mild cerebral palsy.

Boroski was able to provide authorities with a composite sketch and the first three characters of the attacker’s license plate. What a woman!

Despite two composite sketches, the formation of a task force, assistance from criminal profiler John Philpin and a handful of local suspects, no arrests were made in the Connecticut River Valley killings and the case grew cold as the killings ceased after the attack on Boroski.

Is he still out there?

Last Week’s Birthdays 

Ned Beatty (77), Sylvester Stallone (68), George W. Bush (67), Nancy Reagan (92), Ringo Starr (74), Angelica Huston (63), Kevin Bacon (56), Brian Dennehy (76), Richard Roundtree (72), Tom Hanks (58), Sofia Vergara (42), Jessica Simpson (34),  Bill Cosby (77), Cheryl Ladd (63), Anna Friel (38), John Simm (44), Chiwetel Ejiofor (37), Richard Wilson (78), Courtney Love (50), Kelly McGillis (57), Eve Myles (36), Jack Whitehall (26), Shelley Duvall (65), Geoffrey Rush (63), Jennifer Saunders (56) and Burt Ward (69)

2013 League Table

[confidential]

Next week peeps!

13th July 2014 | Categories: 2014 | Leave A Comment »

Dead Pool 29th June 2014

Welcome all to this week’s attempt at deadly humour. Some of you may have noticed that the media picked up on the fact that Eli Wallach has died, but the loss to the Wallach family has given Barry, Liz and Dave 52 points each!! All finally breaking their death duck and shooting them unto the giddy heights of joint last but one place. Well done all three! Now lets see what else has happened in the world of pain that we live in…

Look Who You Could Have Had:

• Steve Rossi, 82, American comedian (Allen & Rossi), cancer.
• Shogo Kubo, 54, American skateboarder (Z-boys), suspected drowning.
• Eli Wallach, 98, American actor (The Good, the Bad and the Ugly, The Magnificent Seven, Baby Doll).
• Mary Rodgers, 83, American composer (Once Upon a Mattress) and children’s author (Freaky Friday).
• Bobby Womack, 70, American Hall of Fame R&B singer (“Lookin’ for a Love“, “Woman’s Gotta Have It“) and songwriter (“It’s All Over Now“, “I Can Understand It”).
• Terry Richards, 81, British movie actor and stuntman (Raiders of the Lost Ark, Tomorrow Never Dies)

In Other News

Sting has revealed his children will not inherit his £180m fortune, fearing that his riches are “albatrosses round their necks”. The former frontman of The Police grew up in a working-class family in Wallsend, North Tyneside, and has gone on to become one of Britain’s wealthiest musicians. He said he has told his six children not to expect to inherit much money because he doesn’t believe in trust funds. The 62 year old singer believes his kids should go out and work and not ask for a penny from him. Let’s rename him Stingy eh?

On the other hand, since his death five years ago, Michael  Jackson seems to be raking it in. The Michael Jackson Estate – which runs his affairs on behalf of Jackson’s mother and three children – has earned over £411million!! Not bad since the King of Pop was struggling to avoid bankruptcy when he died on June 25, 2009. Looks like Prince, Paris and Blanket are laughing it all the way to the bank, wonder if they will take the piss out of Stingy’s kids??

Maybe they should use a few pennies of that fortune to buy Michael Schumacher’s medical records. Yup, someone has nicked his paperwork. Schumacher’s representatives say they will press charges and sue for damages against any publication of the content of the notes, so they seem a bit pissed off about it. Not to worry though, Michael’s wife has gone out and spent £10 million on a private medical suite at their home on the shore of Lake Geneva. So by the sound of it, he’s not going to be driving anything anytime soon, unless its a mobility scooter…

On This Day

• 1613 – The Globe Theatre in London, England burns to the ground.
• 1644 – Charles I of England defeats a Parliamentarian detachment at the Battle of Cropredy Bridge, the last battle won by an English King on English soil.
• 1888 – George Edward Gouraud records Handel‘s Israel in Egypt onto a phonograph cylinder, thought for many years to be the oldest known recording of music.
• 1914 – Jina Guseva attempts to assassinate Grigori Rasputin at his home town in Siberia.
• 1975 – Steve Wozniak tested his first prototype of Apple I computer.
• 1995 – Space Shuttle program: STS-71 Mission (Atlantis) docks with the Russian space station Mir for the first time.
• 2007 – Apple Inc. releases its first mobile phone, the iPhone.

Deaths

• 1933 – Roscoe Arbuckle, American actor, director, and screenwriter (b. 1887)
• 1967 – Jayne Mansfield, American actress and singer (b. 1933)
• 1995 – Lana Turner, American actress and singer (b. 1921)
• 2003 – Katharine Hepburn, American actress and singer (b. 1907)

Horrible Ways to Die #8 –  The Electric Chair by Dexychik

The electric chair had been used in the USA since its invention in the 1880s. It is still offered in five states, as an alternative to lethal injection. It was considered a relatively painless death, and some employees of Thomas Edison utilised alternating current to make a chair o’death. It replaced hanging as the execution method of choice (possibly because hanging was associated with lynching) until the 1980s, when lethal injection slowly superseded it.

The first man to die in the chair was William Kemmler, in 1890. He’d killed his partner with a hatchet. The most recent is Robert Gleason, who first shot a man in a drug-gang related incident, then murdered two cell mates to ensure he’d get the death penalty, which he did last year. Ted Bundy, charming serial killer, was electrocuted, as was Bruno Hauptmann, responsible for the Lindbergh baby murder and Anna Marie Hahn, poisoner extraordinaire.

The first electric chair had two electrodes, attached to the head and base of the spine. Alas, when William Kemmler was initially shocked for 17 seconds with 1000 volts, he didn’t die. He was shocked again a few minutes later, with 2000 volts for EIGHT minutes, with the current only switched off when blood pooling around the electrodes began to burn. Thankfully by then, he really was dead, and a post-mortem showed his brain had burned into his skull. There was a lot of debate before his execution over whether this method could be classed as cruel and unusual punishment. Oddly, they surmised it didn’t.

The technique has had a good 140 years to be perfected, and should you opt for electrocution on death row, you should expect to have your head and legs shaved. You will have your jaws bound shut. You wear a metal electrode on the head, buffered by sponge moistened with saline. You’ll be strapped into a sturdy wooden chair, and another electrode will be attached to each of your legs, with conductive jelly on it. The executioner will apply a 12 amp current to you, for a few seconds, and then another. You’ll probably be dead after the first jolt, but some people survive it. You will piss and shit yourself, your brain tissue will actually boil, smoke rises, and it doesn’t smell good. You die from the damage to your medulla, which controls your heart and lung activity. There is no conclusive proof that you will feel nothing. At least anything you do feel won’t last long. In Florida, your executioner will be paid $150, a relatively small price to kill someone. Oh, and your final meal has to cost less than $40. No Wagu Beef for you.

As with all executions, things can go awry. Spare a  thought for Willie Francis, who in 1946 was electrocuted for the murder of his former employer who’d probably been sexually abusing him. Willie, who was only 17, screamed for help as the first jolt was applied. The guard who had set up the chair had been drunk and done it wrong. He appealed against being electrocuted again, citing that it wasn’t his fault the machine hadn’t worked. This didn’t work (possibly because he was a black man in 40s Louisiana), and he was re-electrocuted, successfully, a year later.

John Evans, executed for armed robbery and murder in 1983, needed three jolts of electricity to finish him off after one of his leg straps came loose. He was checked and found to be alive after the first jolt. The strap was adjusted, but John survived the second jolt as well. The officials present asked the governor for clemency at this point. The governor said no, and the third time was the charm.

So, should you commit a capital crime in one of the states still carrying the electric chair, you should probably opt for lethal injection. Which, coincidentally, I’ll be covering next time.

Last Week’s Birthdays

Minka Kelly (34), Kris Kristofferson (78), Meryl Streep (65), Cindi Lauper (61), Ricky Gervais (53), Carly Simon (69), George Michael (50), Toby Maguire (39), Mel Brooks (88), Kathy Bates (66), John Cusack (48), Frances McDormand (57), Zinedine Zidane (42), Solange Knowles (28), Jason Schwartzman (34), Chris O’Donnell (44), Selma Blair (42), JJ Abrams (48), Chris Isaak (58), Mick Fleetwood (67), Jeff Beck (70), Felicia Day (35), Aileen Quinn (43), Amanda Donohoe (52), Gary Busey (70), Al Molinaro (95), Christopher Mintz-Plasse (25), Bruce Campbell (56), KT Tunstall (39), Selma Blair (42) and Joss Whedon (50).

2013 League Table

[confidential]

Next week peeps!

29th June 2014 | Categories: 2014 | Leave A Comment »

Dead Pool 22nd June 2014

Another week flashes by and the flying monkeys have kept busy, bringing home  another handful of celebrities to be cremated or interred. As you may have heard from the emails, Casey Kasem sadly died, but luckily for Ashley, he managed to guess that his expiration would occur this year, thus garnering 62 points!! Well done Ash!

Also Patsy Byrne, who played Bernard Nurse in Blackadder II passed away, she died on the 17th and her family put a small obituary in the Telegraph, which is only now being picked up by the newspapers. Seems so be a bad month for Blackadder fans 🙁

Look Who You Could Have Had:

• Francis Matthews, 86, English film and television actor (Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons, The Revenge of Frankenstein, Dracula: Prince of Darkness).
• Casey Kasem, 82, American radio personality (American Top 40) and voice actor (Shaggy Rogers), Lewy body dementia.
• Patsy Byrne, 80, English actress (Blackadder II).
• Stephanie Kwolek, 90, American chemist, inventor of Kevlar.
• Johnny Mann, 85, American composer, Grammy Award-winning arranger (“Up, Up and Away“) and singer (Alvin and the Chipmunks).
• Vladimir Popovkin, 56, Russian military officer, head of the Federal Space Agency (2011–2013).
• Jeffry Wickham, 80, British actor (Ransom, The Remains of the Day, Vera Drake), President of Equity (1992–1994).
• Gerry Goffin, 75, American Hall of Fame lyricist (“Will You Love Me Tomorrow“, “The Loco-Motion“, “Go Away Little Girl“, “Take Good Care of My Baby”).
• Gerry Conlon, 60, Northern Irish author and human rights activist, Guildford Four member wrongfully convicted of the Guildford pub bombings.

In Other News 

As you may have heard, our current cabbage of the pool, Michael Schumacher, is no longer in a coma and has left the hospital in Grenoble that has been his home for the past six months. Reports say that the 45 year old has been moved to Switzerland, hopefully not to the Dignitas Clinic, to continue his recovery. News is very scarce as the family want his rehabilitation to take place away from the public eye, so lets start some rumours shall we?

Tracy Morgan has also been moved out of hospital to a rehab centre where he is expected to remain for a few weeks whilst recovering from a six-car pile-up. Morgan, 45, suffered a broken femur, squished ribs and a broken nose in the accident, which is considered critical in America, over here it’s just a slight inconvenience and you’d be expected back at work on Monday, bringing the cake to the office as an apology for letting your workmates down.

And a contribution form Nickie 😀

As a confirmed planner and stationery addict, I was saddened to hear of the sudden death of Charles Letts this week – the last remaining member of the diary dynasty. He was aged 49.  He and his business partner, Gordon Presley had been involved in various stationery buyouts over the past 15 years or so, acquiring Filofax in 2001. The only worrying aspect of this is that “some form of seizure” is becoming a common form of killer these days. Letts (see what I did there) hope they find a cure for this soon…

On This Day

• 1633 – The Holy Office in Rome forces Galileo Galilei to recant his view that the Sun, not the Earth, is the center of the Universe in the form he presented it in, after heated controversy.
• 1906 – The flag of Sweden is adopted.
• 1911 – George V and Mary of Teck are crowned King and Queen of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland.
• 1978 – Charon, a satellite of the dwarf planet Pluto, is discovered by American astronomer James W. Christy.
• 1984 – Virgin Atlantic Airways launches with its first flight from London Heathrow Airport.
• 1986 The controversial Hand of God goal by Diego Maradona in the quarter-finals of the 1986 FIFA World Cup match between Argentina and England. This was later followed by the Goal of the Century also by Maradona. Argentina would win 2-1 and go on to win the world cup.
• 1990 – Checkpoint Charlie is dismantled in Berlin.
• 2009 – Eastman Kodak Company announces that it will discontinue sales of the Kodachrome Colour Film, concluding its 74-year run as a photography icon.

Deaths

• 1965 – David O. Selznick, American film producer (b. 1902)
• 1969 – Judy Garland, American actress and singer (b. 1922)
• 1987 – Fred Astaire, American actor, singer, and dancer (b. 1899)
• 1993 – Pat Nixon, American economist and educator, 44th First Lady of the United States (b. 1912)
• 1997 – Don Henderson, English actor (b. 1932)
• 2008 – George Carlin, American comedian, actor, and author (b. 1937)

Bizarre Victorian Deaths, Part 1 by KoA

In a new series we shall take a look at life, or in our case, death in Victorian times, which was considerably more dangerous than now, if the newspaper reports of the time are anything to go by.

 1. Killed by a Mouse!

This uneasy tale begins in England, 1875, when a mouse dashed suddenly onto a work table in a south London factory. In the general commotion which followed, a gallant young man stepped forward and seized the rodent. For a glorious moment, he was the saviour of the women who’d scattered. It didn’t last. The mouse slipped out of his grasp, ran up his sleeve and scurried out again at the open neck of his shirt. In his surprise, his mouth was agape. In its surprise, the mouse dashed in. In his continued surprise, the man swallowed. “That a mouse can exist for a considerable time without much air has long been a popular belief and was unfortunately proved to be a fact in the present instance,” noted the Manchester Evening News, “for the mouse began to tear and bite inside the man’s throat and chest, and the result was that the unfortunate fellow died after a little time in horrible agony.”

2. Crushed by His Own Invention 

Sam Wardell couldn’t afford to oversleep. He was the lamplighter in the New York town of Flatbush in the mid-1880s. He lit the streetlights in the evening, and needed to be up early to put them out again at dawn. It wasn’t a job for slobs. And so, with the boundless ingenuity of the age, he hit on a neat failsafe. He took a standard alarm clock and supercharged it, adding a Wallace and Gromit-style embellishment to ensure he woke in time. First he connected the clock by a wire to a catch he fitted to a shelf in his room. Then he placed a 10lb stone on the shelf. When the alarm struck, the shelf fell and the stone crashed to the floor. Ta-da! It worked perfectly, and perhaps would have carried on doing so, if Wardell hadn’t toyed with the configuration. One Christmas Eve he invited some friends round for a party and cleared his room of furniture to make space. When they left, he dragged his bed back into the room. He was tired, and didn’t pay much attention to where he put it. At 05:00 the next morning, the alarm sounded. The shelf fell. The stone dropped straight onto the sleeping Wardell’s head. Ouch!

Last Week’s Birthdays

Paula Abdul (52), Prince William (32), Courtney Cox (50), Kathleen Turner (60), Paul McCartney (72), Neil Patrick Harris (41), Isabella Rossellini (62), Barry Manilow (71), Nicole Kidman (47), Lionel Richie (65), Helen Hunt (51), Juliette Lewis (41), Zoe Saldana (36), Ice Cube (50), Mia Sara (47), Jim Belushi (60), Newt Gingrich (71), John Goodman (62), Lana Del Ray (28), Brian Wilson (72), Martin Landau (86) and Olympia Dukakis (83).

2013 League Table

[confidential]

Next week peeps!

22nd June 2014 | Categories: 2014 | Leave A Comment »

Dead Pool 15th June 2014

When I sent out the flying monkeys last week, little did I know that they would reap so many souls! Amongst them Rik Mayall, a true comedy genius and top bloke. I’m sure all of us will miss his comic talents. Sadly the game continues and yes, there are points to be awarded! We shall begin with Rebecca correctly guessing Carla Laemmele would die this year, but being 104 years old only reaps her 46 points, but well done anyway, that’s 46 points more than the rest of us! But this is not all my fellow morbid minions, Lee and Luke correctly surmised that the oldest man in the world would die, again, a small amount of points awarded, 39 each, but an extra 100 to Lee for marking him as his cert. Woo! Just what we needed, a little shake-up in the league table where we now have a new points leader!!

Look Who You Could Have Had:

• Eric Hill, 86, British children’s writer and illustrator (Spot the Dog).
• Alexander Imich, 111, Russian Congress Poland-born American chemist, parapsychologist and supercentenarian, oldest man in the world.
• Veronica Lazăr, 76, Romanian-born Italian actress (Inferno, Last Tango in Paris, The Stendhal Syndrome).
• Rik Mayall, 56, English comedian, writer and actor (The Young Ones, Bottom, The New Statesman), Emmy Award winner (The Wind in the Willows), heart attack.
• Ruby Dee, 91, American Emmy Award-winning actress (Decoration Day), Grammy Award-winner (2007) and civil rights activist, National Medal of Arts laureate (1995).
• Carla Laemmle, 104, American actress (The Phantom of the Opera, The Broadway Melody, Dracula), natural causes.
• Jimmy Scott, 88, American jazz singer.
• Richard Rockefeller, 65, American billionaire physician, plane crash.
• Sam Kelly, 70, British actor (‘Allo ‘Allo!, Porridge).

In Other News

Harrison Ford has been injured on the set of Star Wars:  Episode VII and was taken to hospital, seems the 71 year old has broken his ankle when the door of the Millennium Falcon decided to attack him. His wife, Calista Flockhart is now en-route to be at his bedside as they fear he might have damaged his pelvis too! Filming of the new Star Wars film will continue in his absence but if his recovery is not as straight forward as some reports are suggesting, it looks like the tight scheduling of the shoot might be in danger. We all know what happens when an old fart breaks a hip don’t we!

In birthday news, Prince Philip managed to reach the ripe old age of 93 without any undue mishap. No time to enjoy his birthday though, the old codger has a diary full of events that he has to attend, so it looks like he’s here to stay for a while longer. Not to be outdone, George Bush Snr celebrated his 90th birthday by jumping out of a helicopter, much like The Queen did during the Olympics!! The 41st president of the United States was strapped to an instructor as he can no longer use his legs due to Parkinson’s, but enjoyed the experience immensely.

Casey Kasem is in a bad place. The voice of Shaggy in Scooby-Doo is in the middle of a family feud about his vast fortune and impending death. The courts have decided that his eldest daughter, a millionaire in her own right, is to be his care giver and she’s decided that the 82 year old is to be spared the indignity of treatment, so his food, water and medication have been withheld. So now its just a matter of time, one feels a quick smothering with a pillow would be better for the poor fucker.

The novelist and former MP Jeffrey Archer has revealed that he was diagnosed with prostate cancer late last year. After the diagnosis, he chose to have an operation in which the whole prostate and the cancer would be removed, rather than go through radiotherapy. The 74 year old is now infertile, but I doubt that will cause him any sleepless nights. Sadly he’s still writing crap novels and reckons he’ll survive to see 88. Lets hope for a passing bus shall we?

If you were looking to go see a concert with Morrissey or Paul McCartney any time soon, sell your ticket, both of them are too ill to sing. Paul  has been ill since early May with the squits since visiting Japan, but Morrissey was hospitalised with a respiratory infection. He’s cancelled the rest of his US tour which is a repeat of last year when he cancelled 22 shows due to ill health. His previous ailments have included pneumonia, an ulcer, the throat condition Barrett’s oesophagus and anaemia. Morrissey, being the cunt that he is, publicly blamed his support act Kirsteen Young for passing on a ‘horrendous cold’. She’s obviously a bit angry about these ‘bizarre lies’. Better order some lilies soon…

On This Day

• 1215 – King John of England puts his seal to the Magna Carta.
• 1667 – The first human blood transfusion is administered by Dr. Jean-Baptiste Denys.
• 1752 – Benjamin Franklin proves that lightning is electricity (traditional date, the exact date is unknown).
• 1785 – Jean-François Pilâtre de Rozier, co-pilot of the first-ever manned flight (1783), and his companion, Pierre Romain, become the first-ever casualties of an air crash when their hot air balloon explodes during their attempt to cross the English Channel.
• 1878 – Eadweard Muybridge takes a series of photographs to prove that all four feet of a horse leave the ground when it runs; the study becomes the basis of motion pictures.
• 1970 – Charles Manson Infamous trial for the Sharon Tate murders begin.
• 1996 – The Provisional Irish Republican Army explodes a large bomb in the middle of Manchester, England, United Kingdom.

Deaths

• 1993 – James Hunt, English race car driver (b. 1947)
• 1996 – Ella Fitzgerald, American singer and actress (b. 1917)
• 2008 – Stan Winston, American makeup artist and director (b. 1946)

Death Row Prisoners Last Meals by KoA

This week we’re taking a peek at what Timothy McVeigh had for his parting dinner. You’ll remember him as the chap responsible for the Oklahoma Bombing that killed 168 people and injured 600 more, which is still the worst act of domestic terrorism in the US, the only other that beats it is 9/11, but some Johnny Foreigners were responsible for that one!

McVeigh was an odd sort, his whole reason for the bombing was revenge against the federal government for their  handling of the Waco Siege. He obviously thought they did it wrong.

Like most nut jobs he was bullied at school and had a huge fascination with guns, so obviously his grandfather bought him a gun which he took to school with him. Following dropping out of college he joined the US Army, where they ‘trained him up good’, giving him the skills he needed to finally get his revenge against everything he thought was pissing him off, which included women, as nobody would go out with him, and the government, for making him pay tax.  Following the bombing he was jailed and  sentenced to death.

So here we are at his final meal. He ordered two pints of mint chocolate chip ice cream. Boring or what!?!

McVeigh showed no remorse for his actions and was executed by lethal injection at 7:14 a.m. on June 11, 2001, at the U.S. Federal Penitentiary in Terre Haute, Indiana, the first federal prisoner to be executed by the United States federal government since 1963.

Ice cream! Nom nom…

Last Week’s Birthdays

Kanye West (37), Tim Berners-Lee (59), Nancy Sinatra (74), Joan Rivers (81), Jerry Stiller (87), Barbara Bush (89), Natalie Portman (33), Johnny Depp (50), Michael J Fox (53), Elizabeth Hurley (49), Linda Evangelista (49), Prince Philip (93), Shea LeBeouf (28), Peter Dinklage (45), Hugh Laurie (55), Adrienne Barbeau (69), Gene Wilder (81), Adriana Lima (33), Richard Ayoade (37), George H. W. Bush (90), David Rockefeller (99), Mary-Kate & Ashley Olsen (28), Chris Evans (33), Steve-O (40), Ally Sheedy (52), Tim Allen (60), Richard Thomas (63), Stellan Skarsgård (63), Malcolm McDowell (71), Diablo Cody (36), Steffi Graf (45), Boy George (53), Donald Trump (68), Neil Patrick Harris (41), Ice Cube (45), Courtney Cox (50), Helen Hunt (51) and Jim Belushi (60).

2013 League Table

[confidential]

Next week peeps!

15th June 2014 | Categories: 2014 | Leave A Comment »

Dead Pool 8th June 2014

Welcome all, no points to award, but please don’t be downhearted, I’ve sent out the flying monkeys to reap a few souls in readiness for next week. Not many famous people have bit the bullet during the last week, so I’ve padded out the weekly newsletter with two features to keep you interested, I know, I’m awesome!

Look Who You Could Have Had:

• Sir Hugo White, 74, British admiral, Governor of Gibraltar (1995–1997).
• Mary Soames, Baroness Soames, 91, British aristocrat, last surviving child of Winston Churchill. 
• Ann B. Davis, 88, American actress (The Brady Bunch), winner of two Emmy Awards (The Bob Cummings Show), subdural hematoma from a fall.
• Alexander Shulgin, 88, American pharmacologist and chemist, MDMA pioneer, liver cancer.
• Jane Gray, 112, Scottish-born Australian supercentenarian, oldest living Scottish-born person and Australian resident.
• Chester Nez, 93, American Navajo code talker, last remaining Navajo who developed the code, recipient of the Congressional Gold Medal (2000), renal failure.

In Other News

US actor and ‘comedian’ Tracy Morgan is in intensive care after the limousine he was riding was involved in a fatal crash in New Jersey. Six vehicles were involved, including one carrying the 45-year-old former Saturday Night Live and 30 Rock star. One passenger died after the bus overturned on the New Jersey Turnpike early on Saturday, police said. Four are in hospital, three remain critical. A lorry driver is facing criminal charges over the crash.

South Africa’s President, Jacob Zuma, has been admitted to  hospital for tests, his office has announced. “Yesterday President Zuma was advised to rest following a demanding election,” a statement said. Doctors were satisfied with his condition. Mr Zuma, 72, was sworn in for a second term on 24th May following the African National Congress election victory. Lets hope the old codger survives long enough so we can include him on next years lists.  

King Juan Carlos of Spain has announced his intention to abdicate, after nearly 40 years on the throne. “A new generation must be at the forefront… younger people with new energies,” the 76-year-old king said in a televised address. His son, Crown Prince Felipe, 45, will take over the throne. For much of his reign, Juan Carlos was seen as one of the world’s most popular monarchs, but recently many Spaniards have lost confidence in him. We all know what happens to men after they retire, best get him on a list quick!  

In a sure sign of impending death, stars have paid tribute to actress and political activist Jane Fonda as she accepted the American Film Institute’s Life Achievement Award. As she accepted the award, Fonda offered some advice on career longevity for the roomful of celebrities gathered: “Ask questions, stay curious. It’s much more important to be interested than to be interesting.” Well said Jane, I’ll try to keep your words in mind when you need your headstone carved. 

On This Day

• 632 – Muhammad, Islamic prophet, dies in Medina and is succeeded by Abu Bakr who becomes the first caliph of the Rashidun Caliphate.
• 793 – Vikings raid the abbey at Lindisfarne in Northumbria, commonly accepted as the beginning of the Scandinavian invasion of England.
• 1191 – Richard I arrives in Acre (Palestine) thus beginning his crusade.
• 1929 – Margaret Bondfield is appointed Minister of Labour. She is the first woman appointed to the Cabinet of the United Kingdom.
• 1949 – The celebrities Helen Keller, Dorothy Parker, Danny Kaye, Fredric March, John Garfield, Paul Muni and Edward G. Robinson are named in an FBI report as Communist Party members.
• 1949 – George Orwell‘s Nineteen Eighty-Four is published.
• 1953 – The United States Supreme Court rules that restaurants in Washington, D.C., cannot refuse to serve black patrons.
• 1968 – Robert F. Kennedy‘s funeral takes place at the Basilica of St. Patrick’s Cathedral, New York City.
• 1972 – Vietnam War: The Associated Press photographer Nick Ut takes his Pulitzer Prize-winning photo of a naked 9-year-old Phan Thị Kim Phúc running down a road after being burned by napalm.

Deaths

• 632 – Muhammad, Last Prophet of Islam (b. 570)
• 1874 – Cochise, American tribal chief (b. 1805)
• 1924 – Andrew Irvine, English mountaineer (b. 1902)
• 1924 – George Mallory, English lieutenant and mountaineer (b. 1886)
• 2003 – Leighton Rees, Welsh darts player (b. 1940)
• 2006 – Robert Donner, American actor (b. 1931)

Death Row Prisoners Last Meals by KoA

This week we shall be looking at Ronnie Lee Gardner, an awesome individual who received the death penalty for murder in October 1984. He killed a chap called Melvyn John Otterstrom during a robbery in Salt Lake City and while being transported in April 1985 to a court hearing for the homicide, he fatally shot attorney Michael Burdell in an unsuccessful escape attempt. So you can see he’s a stirling upstanding citizen. He spent the best part of 25 years in the system before being executed by firing squad, that in itself was interesting as it was the first one carried out in the U.S. for 14 years.

On June 15, 2010, Gardner ate a last meal of steak, lobster tail, apple pie, vanilla ice cream and 7-Up, before beginning a 48-hour fast while watching The Lord of the Rings film trilogy and reading Divine Justice.  

• Lobster Tail
• Steak
• Apple Pie
• Vanilla Ice Cream
• 7-Up
• Lord of the Rings Trilogy DVD’s
• Copy of Devine Justice
• 48 Hour fasting period

According to his lawyers, the fast was motivated by “spiritual reasons.” As a good inmate, Gardner walked voluntarily to his place of execution.When asked if he had any last words, he responded, “I do not, no.” So they proceeded to shoot the shit out of him.

As you do, a commemorative coin was commissioned for prison staff who participated in the execution. Well done America, way to show us all how to do it!

Human Bindings by KoA

In ‘good news for bibliomaniacs and satanists’, scientists say the binding of 1880s study of the human soul is in fact made of human skin! Scientific analysis of the 19th-century book has proved “without a doubt” that its leather binding is made from human skin, Harvard University has confirmed.

After it emerged in April that, despite an inscription claiming that its binding was formed from “all that remains of my dear friende Jonas Wright”, the 17th-century book Practicarum Quaestionum Circa Leges Regias Hispaniae was actually bound with sheepskin, Harvard set out to test the provenance of an unusual binding on a copy of Arsène Houssaye’s Des destinées de l’ame.

The book includes a note by its binder Dr Ludovic Bouland, which claims it is “bound in human skin parchment on which no ornament has been stamped to preserve its elegance”. “By looking carefully you easily distinguish the pores of the skin,” wrote Bouland. “A book about the human soul deserved to have a human covering: I had kept this piece of human skin taken from the back of a woman.”

Harvard called the discovery “good news for fans of anthropodermic bibliopegy, bibliomaniacs and cannibals alike”. Anthropodermic bibliopegy is the practice of binding books in human skin, something which enjoyed a spate of popularity in the 19th century, but which has occurred since at least the 1500s.

Antiquarian bookseller Tim Bryars, who runs a shop in London’s Cecil Court, said that “anthropodermic biblopegy has a grisly pull on everyone who has heard of it, booksellers included”, but that “identifying the origin of some leathers used historically in bookbinding can be tricky”.

“But does that mean that leather-bound books on your shelves at home might involve human remains? It’s highly unlikely,” said Bryars. “Most examples seem to cover works on anatomy and trial reports (sometimes bound in the skin of the accused), the product of a different age, an entirely different way of thinking, and the provenance is generally well attested, the whereabouts known.”

He pointed to the case of John Horwood, who was hanged for murder in Bristol almost 200 years ago, his skin used to bind an account of the case.

Books, who thought they were boring?

Last Week’s Birthdays

Alanis Morissette (40), Heidi Klum (41), Jonathan Pryce (67), Rene Auberjonois (74), Morgan Freeman (77), Pat Boone (80), Justin Long (36), Zachary Quinto (37), Dana Carvey (59), Rafael Nadal (28), Russell Brand (39), Angelina Jolie (39), Bruce Dern (78), Mark Wahlberg (43), Paul Giamatti (47), Sandra Bernhard (59), Robert Englund (67), Michael Cera (26), Anna Kournikova (33), Bill Hader (35), Prince (56), Liam Neeson (61), Kayne West (37), Tim Berners-Lee (59), Nancy Sinatra (74), Joan Rivers (81), Barbara Bush (89)  and Tom Jones (74).

2013 League Table

[confidential]

Next week  peeps!

8th June 2014 | Categories: 2014 | Leave A Comment »

Dead Pool 1st June 2014

Mi Dios!! We have a winner Poolers! Stu correctly  guessed that Manuel Uribe, the   world’s fattest ‘living’ man, would die this year, not only this, he ascribed him as his Maverick! Just to put this in context, nobody in the history of The Dead Pool has successfully scored a Maverick! We’ve come close with various overdoses and suicides, but this is the first time an actual Maverick has kicked the bucket! Well done Stu, a well deserved 192 points, which propels you to the top of the league table!

Look Who You Could Have Had:

• Michael Gottlieb, 69, American film director (Mannequin), screenwriter (Mr. Nanny) and video game producer (Mortal Kombat 4), traffic collision.
• Manuel Uribe, 48, Mexican obese man, was world’s third-heaviest person, liver failure.
• Maya Angelou, 86, American author (I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings), poet (“On the Pulse of Morning“) and civil rights activist.
• Oscar Dystel, 101, American book publishing executive (Bantam Books), pioneered mass marketing of paperbacks.
• Malcolm Glazer, 85, American real estate executive (First Allied Corporation) and sports franchise owner (Manchester United, Tampa Bay Buccaneers).

In Other News

The family and followers of one of India’s wealthiest Hindu spiritual leaders are fighting a legal battle over whether he is dead or simply in a deep state of meditation. His Holiness Shri Ashutosh Maharaj, the founder of the Divya Jyoti Jagrati Sansthan religious order with a property estate worth an estimated £100 million, ‘died’ in January, according to his wife and son. However, his disciples at his Ashram have refused to let the family take his body for cremation because they claim he is still alive. According to his followers, he simply went into a deep Samadhi or meditation and they have frozen his body, as you do, to preserve it for when he wakes up. Unsurprisingly, his son Dilip Jha, 40, claims his late father’s followers are refusing to release his body as a means of retaining control of his vast financial empire. His body is currently contained in a commercial freezer at their Ashram. 

Two members of the Japanese girl group AKB48 were taken to hospital after being attacked by a man wielding a saw at one of the band’s meet-the-fans events. Rina Kawaei, 19, and Anna Iriyama, 18, both broke bones in their right hands and received cuts on their arms and heads caused by the 50cm saw at the event in Iwate in northern Japan. A 24-year-old man, identified as unemployed Satoru Umeta, was arrested on suspicion of attempted murder. AKB48 is part talent show, part pop act, in which a pool of more than 100 young women compete for a spot in the limelight when each new hit is released. Members must strive constantly for popularity if they wish to retain their spot, and girls who contravene strict rules, such as having boyfriends, are dropped back into the general talent pool. One assumes that both Rina and Anna will now be dropped due to their horrible scars and lack of fingers.

AKB48 weren’t the only celebrities attacked this week; Brad Pitt was hit in the face as he signed autographs at the Hollywood premiere of Maleficent, starring his partner Angelina Jolie. Pitt was quietly wielding a pen when Vitalii Sediuk leaped over a fence and hit him in the chops. The actor was not seriously hurt and authorities quickly subdued Sediuk, who was then arrested for misdemeanour battery. Sediuk, 25, is a Ukrainian television reporter who has often pranked celebrities at red carpet events. In previous exploits, Sediuk has hugged actor Leonardo DiCaprio’s crotch, stormed the stage during singer Adele’s Grammy acceptance speech, and been slapped by Will Smith after kissing the actor at a Moscow premiere. I still think Dennis Pennis had more class though… 

Continuing in the same theme, Macaulay Culkin’s band was booed off stage at Nottingham Rock City at the weekend after fans took exception to the performance. The Home Alone star and his bandmates abandoned the show, which was part of the Dot to Dot festival, after just 15 minutes, following a stage invasion and interruption of Culkin’s kazoo solo. The reaction came despite a promise of free pizza for fans in the crowd. The group, who play Velvet Underground songs with pizza-themed lyrics had full pints of beer thrown at them. “Why are you throwing those?” Culkin asked the crowd at the Rock City venue. “I’d rather drink them.” But audience member Patrick Mendes was unrepentant. “I’m glad I lobbed a pint and I’m glad it hit you,” he wrote on the group’s Facebook page. Complaining about their “mockery” of “one of the greatest bands of all time”, he added: “Great art should never be compromised”. 

And finally, you might not have noticed, but we have narrowly escaped nuclear armageddon! BBC Radio 4 failed to broadcast the Shipping Forecast for the first time in more than 90 years. The radio service is something of an institution, broadcasting four forecasts a day since 1924, a routine which failed for the first time at 5.20am on Friday. A technical glitch meant the BBC’s World Service was played in its place. As you all know, the longwave signal is part of the Royal Navy’s system of Last Resort Letters. In the event of a suspected catastrophic attack on Britain, nuclear submarine commanders check for a broadcast signal from Radio 4 on LW 198 to verify the annihilation of organised society in Great Britain, if they don’t hear the expected transmission, they are allowed the mother of all firework displays! Luckily they were able to resolve the issue at 5.40am when it cut back to the Radio 4 programme. Friday morning’s Shipping Forecast eventually aired 6.40am, thus ensuring world peace! 

On This Day

• 1495 – Friar John Cor records the first known batch of Scotch whisky.
• 1533 – Anne Boleyn is crowned Queen of England.
• 1831 – James Clark Ross discovers the Magnetic North Pole.
• 1960 – New Zealand‘s first official television broadcast commences at 7.30 pm from Auckland.
• 1967 – Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band by the Beatles is released.
• 1974 – The Heimlich maneuver for rescuing choking victims is published in the journal Emergency Medicine.

Deaths

• 1960 – Paula Hitler, Austrian-German sister of Adolf Hitler (b. 1896)
• 1968 – Helen Keller, American author and activist (b. 1880)
• 2008 – Yves Saint Laurent, French fashion designer, founded Saint Laurent Paris (b. 1936)

Last Week’s Birthdays

Stevie Nicks (66), Clint Eastwood (84), Brooke Shields (49), Mike Myers (51), Lenny Kravitz (50), Jack McBrayer (41), Kylie Minogue (46), Lea Thompson (53), CeeLo Green (39), Helena Bonham-Carter (48), Colin Farrell (38), Noel Gallagher (47), Anne Heche (45), Tom Berenger (65), Rupert Everett (55), Paul Bettany (43), LaToya Jackson (58), Gladys Knight (70), Philip Michael Thomas (65), Jamie Oliver (39), Colm Meaney (61) and Sharon Gless (71).

2013 League Table

[confidential]

Next week peeps!

1st June 2014 | Categories: 2014 | Leave A Comment »

Dead Pool 25th May 2014

Welcome all to a slightly  later than normal Dead Pool round-up, sorry about that but I was busy enjoying myself, you know how it is. But what have we here? Yes, points to be awarded!! Looks like Luke has scored with the death of Wojciech Jaruzelski! Nice one! A spiffing 60 points to your scoreline sir! Which brings your total score up to, er.. 60! Well done that man! 

Look Who You Could Have Had:

• Miss Beazley, 9, American-born Scottish terrier, co-First Dog (2005–2009), euthanized due to lymphoma.
• Jerry Vale, 83, American singer (“Have You Looked into Your Heart“, “The Star-Spangled Banner“) and actor (Goodfellas, Casino).
• Gordon Willis, 82, American cinematographer (The Godfather series, Annie Hall, Manhattan), cancer.
• Sir Jack Brabham, 88, Australian racing driver, triple Formula One world champion (1959, 1960, 1966).
• Matthew Cowles, 69, American actor and playwright (All My Children, Law & Order, Oz).
• Donald Levine, 86, American toy executive, developer of the first action figure and G. I. Joe, cancer.
• Wojciech Jaruzelski, 90, Polish military officer and politician, Prime Minister (1981–1985), Chairman of the Council of State (1985–1989), President (1989–1990).

In Other News

Two-time World Snooker Championship runner-up Ali Carter has been diagnosed with a form of lung cancer. World Snooker announced on Saturday that the 34-year-old from Chelmsford will undergo an intensive course of chemotherapy. The world number 13, who has Crohn’s disease, last year recovered from testicular cancer to resume his career, talk about a spate of bad luck! Carter had been due to play on Saturday in Gloucester, in the qualifying stages of the Wuxi Classic, but pulled out, sadly I think we need to keep an eye on him for next year!  

Paul McCartney has been treated in hospital after falling ill in Japan but the former Beatle is expected to “make a complete recovery” from the viral infection he’s caught. He had already cancelled several Asian tour dates but has since expanded the run of cancellations. McCartney, 71, has been sick for about a week, reporting his first symptoms not long after arriving in Japan on 15th May. Sankei Sports, a local newspaper, reported that the singer had been vomiting and suffering from diarrhoea. Sounds like he’s got a serious bout of the Delhi Belly, better keep drinking lots Paul, make sure that soggy bottom doesn’t dry up! 

The Duke of Edinburgh has had a “minor procedure” carried out on his right hand, Buckingham Palace has announced. A spokeswoman said on Wednesday that the Duke, 92, was continuing his engagements as planned, but the Royal stalwart still arrived at a garden party at the palace with the hand bandaged! No details as to what the procedure was, but one expects it was hurt from punching one of his servants.  

The oldest living American, one of the few living people born in the 19th Century, has marked her 115th birthday. Jeralean Talley was born on 23rd May 1899 and is the world’s second-oldest person, according to a list maintained by the Gerontology Research Group. The oldest is Misao Okawa in Japan, who is 116. Asked how she has lived so long, Ms Talley told the Detroit Free Press: “It’s all in the good Lord’s hands. There’s nothing I can do about it.” She plans to celebrate with family and friends at a local church in Michigan on Sunday.

On This Day

• 240 BC – First recorded perihelion passage of Halley’s Comet.
• 1895 – The playwright, poet, and novelist Oscar Wilde is convicted of “committing acts of gross indecency with other male persons” and sentenced to serve two years in prison.
• 1961 – Apollo program: The U.S. President John F. Kennedy announces before a special joint session of the Congress his goal to initiate a project to put a “man on the Moon” before the end of the decade.
• 1977 – Star Wars (retitled Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope in 1981) is released in theater’s, inspiring the Jediism religion and Geek Pride Day holiday.
• 2011 – Oprah Winfrey airs her last show, ending her twenty-five-year run of The Oprah Winfrey Show.
• 2012 – The Dragon spacecraft became the first commercial spacecraft to successfully rendezvous with the International Space Station.

Deaths

• 1934 – Gustav Holst, English composer (b. 1874)
• 2002 – Pat Coombs, English actress (b. 1926)
• 2006 – Desmond Dekker, Jamaican singer-songwriter (b. 1941)

A Wonderful Comeuppance by KoA

For the first time in 35 years, the San Isidro Festival, which opens the bullfighting season in Spain, had to be suspended because all the matadors had been injured. 

In what could be seen as divine providence, two Half-tonne fighting bulls gored or trampled all three matadors in an extraordinary upset at Madrid’s prestigious Las Ventas bullring, forcing the spectacle to be cancelled. The first bull on the programme, a black, 532kg animal named Deslio, knocked Mora over during a pass as his yellow and pink cape swirled in the wind. 

Mora fell to the sand beneath his cloak, but the bull immediately turned on him, head down, ramming its horn deep into his leg and tossing him over repeatedly.

“The somersault was horrific, shocking, chilling, impossible for the human eye to witness yet evident to the mind,” wrote Antonio Lorca, bullfighting correspondent for the El País newspaper.

Mora suffered a 30cm gash in the thigh and another wound in the armpit, a medical report from the bullring said.

The venue’s surgeon, Maximo Garcia Padros, reportedly said Mora had needed a blood transfusion during a two-hour operation.

“The goring in the femoral vein placed his life in danger. If you don’t act it empties like an open tap, but that’s why we are here,” he said.

The second matador, Antonio Nazare, appeared  before the shocked audience to finish off the animal with his sword.

Nazare then faced his own opponent, however, a 537kg brown bull named Feten. The animal dragged the matador along the sand, injuring his knee and forcing him to seek treatment at the bullring’s hospital, the medical report showed.

The third matador, Saúl Jiménez Fortes, entered the ring to fight the same bull. The animal skewered him in the right leg and the pelvis, leaving three 10cm-deep injuries, the bullring doctor said. Sadly, Fortes managed to kill the beast before he, too, sought medical treatment.

Last Week’s Birthdays

Grace Jones (66), Pete Townshend (69), Busta Rhymes 942), Cher (68), Joe Cocker (70), Gotye (34), Judge Reinhold 957), Mr T (62), Leo Sayer (66), Naomi Campbell (44), Morrissey (55), Marvin Hagler (60), Joan Collins (81), John C Reilly (49), Priscilla Presley (69), Gary Burghoff (71), Bob Dylan (73), Tommy Chong (76), Anne Heche (45), Mike Myers (51), Ian McKellen (75), Helena Bonham Carter (48), Zola Budd (48), Lenny Kravitz (50), Pam Grier (65) and Stevie Nicks (66).

2013 League Table

[confidential]

Next week peeps!

26th May 2014 | Categories: 2014 | Leave A Comment »