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 »

Dead Pool 18th May 2014

Welcome all, what a strange week! Robert Burns died, no, not  that one, but the   Canadian politician. Also Tom Jones passed, no, not that one, the WWII Navajo soldier and coder, and last but not least, Charlie Brown died, no, not that one, the basketball player, so you can imagine my confusion!

We also said goodbye to Stephen Sutton, a truly inspiring character, whom to date has risen nearly £4 million for cancer charities, if only we all could be so altruistic in our own demises.

Look Who You Could Have Had:

• Mary Stewart, 97, British novelist (Merlin series), heart failure.
• H. R. Giger, 74, Swiss Academy Award-winning surrealist artist (Alien), injuries from a fall.
• Stephen Sutton, 19, British charity fundraiser, colorectal cancer.
• Louise Wilson, 52, British fashion designer.

In Other News

Anyone else found that the tomato sauce in their Heinz Baked Beans has a slight tang in them recently? Well it might be down to Alec Brackenbury, 49, who had his hand chopped off whilst servicing a peeling machine at their factory. I’d assume that the spurting stump would add plenty of its own sauce to their recipe, but please look out if you prefer the Beans with Sausage variety. Nom nom…

Award-winning TV writer and comedian Caroline Aherne is recovering from treatment for lung cancer. Aherne, 50, had eye cancer when she was a child and also revealed that she had been treated for bladder cancer in the past. The poor woman has a very troubled past, a suspected suicide bid in 1998 brought into sharp focus the problems she was having. Following a drug overdose, Aherne admitted she was an alcoholic and had not been aware of what she was doing to herself. A true candidate for the Dead Pool if I ever saw one!

TV personalities Judy Finnigan and husband Richard Madeley have said they have agreed to an assisted death pact should one of them fall seriously ill. Madeley said: “If Judy was really ill and in logical mind…”I wouldn’t give a tuppenny if there was a risk of being prosecuted. I’d do what was right for my wife.” Finnigan added: “And I’d do the same. Stuff it all! We’ve made ourselves give each other a pledge along those lines.” Madeley continued: “If, when the time came… Judy said to me, ‘But what about you? What about the risk of prosecution?’, I’d say, ‘That’s my problem, I’ll deal with that, don’t worry about it.’ And for me, it would be the locked room, the bottle of whisky and the revolver. I wouldn’t want to mess around.” We are all wondering why both of you are waiting for illness, just do it!!

Australian actor Hugh Jackman has had a second cancerous skin growth removed from his nose. The 45-year-old attended the premiere of his latest film, X-Men: Days of Future Past, sporting a bandage on his face in New York on Saturday. The star told reporters he learned the results of a biopsy diagnosing the basal cell carcinoma on Thursday, and had it removed immediately.

You know how we all know who Steve Jobs was, do any of you know who the head of Samsung is? No? Nor did I, but he is in a “stable condition” after undergoing emergency heart surgery. Lee Kun-hee underwent the operation after suffering breathing difficulties late on Saturday night. Mr Lee took over as chairman of South Korea’s biggest business in 1987 after his father’s death. He is credited with turning the company into an international force in the technology market. He has previously undergone lung surgery in the 1990s and has reportedly suffered respiratory problems since then. They guy is worth £6 billion and his son and two daughters have senior positions at Samsung and it is thought that his son, Jay Lee, currently vice-chairman, will eventually succeed him. Who knew eh?

And finally, the Pentagon isn’t letting a little thing like zombies not existing get in the way of their emergency preparedness. The US military has cooked up a plan that would come in handy if the dead happened to rise from their graves to attack the living. “This plan was not actually designed as a joke,” reads a disclaimer in  the recently declassified CONOP 8888, the “Counter-Zombie Dominance” plan devised by US Strategic Command planners in Omaha, Nebraska. But it’s not entirely serious, either. The plan was designed as a training tool for military personnel who would be tasked with assessing threats and protecting civilians in any sort of attack. The military doesn’t actually believe that zombies are a legitimate threat—just that they’re a useful training tool. Yeah, everything has a reason, we all know they have developed a virus that changes us into zombies, they just need to control us!

On This Day

• 1756 – The Seven Years’ War begins when Great Britain declares war on France.
• 1803 – Napoleonic Wars: The United Kingdom revokes the Treaty of Amiens and declares war on France.
• 1812 – John Bellingham is found guilty and sentenced to death by hanging for the assassination of British Prime Minister Spencer Perceval.
• 1910 – The Earth passes through the tail of Comet Halley.
• 1912 – The first Indian film, Shree Pundalik by Dadasaheb Torne is released in Mumbai.
• 1953 – Jackie Cochran becomes the first woman to break the sound barrier.
• 1969 – Apollo program: Apollo 10 is launched.
• 1980 – 1980 eruption of Mount St. Helens: Mount St. Helens erupts in Washington, United States, killing 57 people and causing $3 billion in damage.

Deaths

• 1911 – Gustav Mahler, Austrian composer (b. 1860)
• 1980 – Ian Curtis, English singer-songwriter (Joy Division) (b. 1956)

Horrible Ways to Die #7 – Broken on a Wheel by Dexychik

You’ve probably heard of a Catherine wheel firework. They’re named after the legend of the martyrdom of St Catherine of Alexandria, who was to be broken on a wheel. When the wheel touched her, it broke from miraculous force, so she was beheaded instead. Apparently, she then bled milk.

The first recorded use of the wheel was in Roman times, and they used it to kill slaves and martyrs. A man was laid underneath an iron wheel, which was then smashed into him with a weight. They also practised a form in which the victim was tied to a spiked wheel and then run over more spikes.

Being broken on the wheel was a medieval method of torture and execution across Europe although it was also used as a way to defile the dead well into the 18th century. It was never popular in England, though Scotland used it several times. In Germany, it remained on the statute books until the 19th century.

It had various applications. In its crudest form, the victim was simply run over by the wheel, attached to a cart or similar. The more awful version saw the victim stretched across the wagon wheel (which would be considerably larger than modern ones) and then spun, with their limbs broken in the gaps with a lead weight as they spun past. Some people were broken starting with the neck, which killed them quickly. Others were killed starting at the feet and working upwards- a  slow and painful death.

One of the most revolting uses of the wheel, recorded in Zurich, involved breaking a person’s bones and spine against the wheel as a brace, then threading the useless limbs around the spokes of it, which was then erected on a pole. The still-living victim was then left to die of shock and exposure.

Frequently, people sentenced to die in this manner were mercy-killed either by strangulation before beginning, or being killed by a direct blow to the chest at some point. However, those who suffered the full extent took a long time to die. The more serious the crime, the longer the victim was left on the wheel before being strangled or finished off. It was a very popular spectacle.

Bleurgh! Next time, would you like burned alive or the electric chair? You decide!

Last Week’s Birthdays

Stephen Colbert (50), Stevie Wonder (64), Tony Hawk (46), Stephen Baldwin (48), Emilio Estevez (52), Robert Pattinson (28), George Lucas (70), Tim Roth (53), Pierce Brosnan (61), Janet Jackson (48), Megan Fox (28), Bill Paxton (59), Enya (53), Trent Reznor (49), Jordan Knight (44), Steve Winwood (66), Burt Bacharach (86), Harvey Keitel (75), Brian Eno (66), Mark Zuckerburg (30), Sofia Coppola (43), Robert Zemeckis (62), Tori Spelling (41), Gabriella Sabatini (44), David Boreanaz (45), Olga Korbut (59), Debra Winger (59), Sugar Ray Leonard (58), Tina Fey (44) and Chow Yun-Fat (59).

2013 League Table

[confidential]

Next week peeps!

18th May 2014 | Categories: 2014 | Leave A Comment »

Dead Pool 11th May 2014

Fuck me! Harry Potter died, for real! Click the link below to find out out who and what. So, another pointless week, I must say this year is a very slow one and my amazing talent for filling dead news is being stretched to the extreme! But I’m not one to be put off with the lack of celebrity deaths, I find fun and amazement with the various illnesses that this week’s other news brings. Hallelujia!

Look Who You Could Have Had:

• Elena Baltacha, 30, Ukrainian-born British tennis player, liver cancer.
• Dick Ayers, 90, American comic book artist (Fantastic Four, Ghost Rider), complications from Parkinson’s disease.
• Al Pease, 92, British-born Canadian Hall of Fame racing driver (Formula One).
• Bill Dana, 83, American NASA test pilot (X-15 rocket), complications from Parkinson’s disease.
• Jimmy Ellis, 74, American boxer, WBA heavyweight champion (1968–1970), dementia.
• Colin Pillinger, 70, British planetary scientist, brain haemorrhage.
• Nancy Malone, 79, American television producer, director and actress (Bionic Woman, Melrose Place, Naked City), complications from leukemia.
• Harry Potter, 72, Australian television journalist (Network Ten), cancer.

In Other News

Ronnie O’Sullivan escaped unscathed from a car crash as he travelled home from defeat in the world championship final. The five-times world champion and his six-year-old son, Ronnie Jr, (naming your own son after you, so chic) were travelling in a two-seater Audi R8 sports car (posh) when it spun out of control on the M1 near Leicester at around 1.30am (not so posh). Neither suffered serious injuries but they were understood to have been left “shaken like a Bond Martini” after pulling themselves out of the wreckage. It came just hours after the overconfident 38-year-old lost the world final to Mark Selby (woo!) by 18 frames to 14 at the Crucible theatre in Sheffield.

Miley Cyrus has denied reports that her recent stay in hospital was caused by drugs. “I didn’t have a drugs overdose. I took some antibiotics that a doctor gave me for a sinus infection,” she said. She spent two weeks in hospital after suffering an allergic reaction to the medication… (yeah) “I’ve been laying in a hospital bed connected to IVs. I’m on a bunch of good vitamins and doing lots of yoga trying to get myself back together.” She previously cancelled shows in Amsterdam and Antwerp as a result of her ‘illness’. “My immune system was already low because I had a death in my family and was already down. “What doesn’t make it better is that people were online saying I’d done it with drugs but it’s all good. I’m okay and I’m here,” the singer added. Cyrus, who rose to fame as Disney’s Hannah Montana, said being bed ridden had been the “most miserable” two weeks of her life. Wait ‘til you’re 23 years old my dear…

Her aides have always insisted she is not slowing down, but The Queen made an unexpected change to a major public appearance the other day after deciding a steep flight of steps would be too much for her. Her Majesty had been due to take part in an ancient installation ceremony for knights of the Order of the Bath at Westminster Abbey, an event she only attends every eight years. Dressed in a cumbersome robe with a train, worn over an evening dress, the Queen, 88, would’ve needed to descend a short flight of steps to approach the altar in the Abbey, then make her way back up the steps to her throne. But after a dress rehearsal on Thursday, which the old hag didn’t attend, aides decided the monarch should not go ahead with that part of the ceremony. The Prince of Wales will deputise for her instead. Lets hope the big nosed cunt trips down the stairs. 

From Sheezus to ‘queazus’, Lily Allen has been undergoing tests after being taken to hospital with a mystery illness, possibly due to a bout of food poisoning. The illness comes as the singer’s new album flies high on the charts, fuck knows why… A spokesperson for the singer would not comment on whether Allen would cancel forthcoming appearances, which is a great shame, as I for one would love to miss each one. Lily Allen’s latest single, ‘Our Time’, is currently at No 43. Well done her!

And finally, a group of coal miners from the western province of Xinjiang, had an unbelievable surprise when the gallery they were excavating opened up on a section of an old mine that was abandoned 17 years ago after an earthquake that caused some large sections of the tunnels to collapse. While they were exploring the galleries, they stumbled upon Cheung Wai, a 59-year old survivor from the 1997 accident, obviously in a rather bad shape. The poor man had remained trapped underground with the bodies of 78 of his dead coworkers, after an earthquake of a magnitude of 7.8 hit the region. He managed to survive thanks to an emergency stash of rice and water, stored in an underground depot. Even though he was suffering from great physical and mental stress, he managed to give proper burials to all of his comrades, spending almost a year in this great selfless act. Personally I’d have eaten them. 

On This Day

• 330 – Byzantium is renamed Nova Roma during a dedication ceremony, but it is more popularly referred to as Constantinople.
• 868 – A copy of the Diamond Sutra is printed in China, making it oldest known dated printed book.
• 912 – Alexander becomes Emperor of the Byzantine Empire.
• 1310 – In France, fifty-four members of the Knights Templar are burned at the stake as heretics.
• 1812 – Prime Minister Spencer Perceval is assassinated by John Bellingham in the lobby of the House of Commons, London.
• 1820 – HMS Beagle, the ship that will take Charles Darwin on his scientific voyage, is launched.
• 1927 – The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences is founded.
• 1985 – Bradford City stadium fire: Fifty-six spectators die and more than 200 are injured in a flash fire at Valley Parade football ground during a match against Lincoln City in Bradford, England. And yet they don’t go on about it like the Scousers do…
• 1987 – Klaus Barbie goes on trial in Lyon for war crimes committed during World War II.
• 1997 – Deep Blue, a chess-playing supercomputer, defeats Garry Kasparov in the last game of the rematch, becoming the first computer to beat a world-champion chess player in a classic match format.
• 2010 – David Cameron becomes Prime Minister of the United Kingdom following talks between the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats to form the UK’s first coalition government since World War II after elections produced a hung parliament. And Britain has never recovered since…

Deaths

• 1778 – William Pitt, 1st Earl of Chatham, English politician, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom (b. 1708)
• 1871 – John Herschel, English mathematician, astronomer, and chemist (b. 1792)
• 1889 – John Cadbury, English businessman and philanthropist, founded the Cadbury Company (b. 1801)
• 1960 – John D. Rockefeller, Jr., American businessman and philanthropist (b. 1874)
• 1981 – Bob Marley, Jamaican singer-songwriter and guitarist (Bob Marley and the Wailers) (b. 1945)
• 1985 – Chester Gould, American cartoonist, created Dick Tracy (b. 1900)
• 2001 – Douglas Adams, English author and screenwriter (b. 1952)

Eurovision is dead (for the UK) by Nickie

I have just spent the last five days on Eurovision countdown, bigging up the UK entry because it seemed (for once) that someone had studied all possible factors and produced a decent entry. We came 5^th from last and lost to a bearded woman that looked like the love child of Rylan and Nicole Shitslinger, or as I like to think, Tranny Jesus! (ed).  I think it’s time we stopped buying our entry into the final and either compete properly like the British ought to or bow out gracefully before we die a complete death like Jeminii.

So the UK entry died a death (yet again) but this is about real deaths!  At the time of writing none of the Eurovision winners have died in extreme circumstances (miserable bastards) and only one has died of natural causes  – Teddy Scholten from the Netherlands. 

There’s only two less fortunate Eurovision entrants who have reached the end of their mortal coil that are worth writing about. There isn’t a lot of horror or gossip but these two should keep you going.

Remember “Wheelchair Kerry” from the 3^rd series of X-Factor?  She popped her clogs after a battle with cancer but not many people remember that she came 2^nd (in the national finals) to Katrina and the Waves with the catchy number “Yodel In The Canyon Of Love”

Next there is the Danish Eurovision entrant from 1991, Anders Frandsen.  Being placed 19^th in the contest (with only 8 points) obviously had an adverse effect on him because regardless of his TV career he disappeared from public life and was found alongside the very extinct 2011, attempting a suicide BBQ in his bedroom. He died of carbon monoxide poisoning.  

Here are my Eurovision recommendations for The Dead Pool 2015: Engelbert Humperdinck, Nana Mouskouri, Katie Boyle and Daz Sampson.

Last Week’s Birthdays

Traci Lords (46), Enrique Iglesias (39), Don Rickles (88), Candice Bergen (68), Rosario Dawson (35), Billy Joel (65), Bono (53), George Clooney (53), Adele (26), Michael Palin (71), Will Arnett (44), Randy Travis (55), Lance Henriksen (74), John Rhys-Davies (70), Craig David (33), Chris Brown (25), Gary Glitter (70), Albert Finney (78), Glenda Jackson (78), Donavan (68) and Linda Evangelista (49).

2013 League Table

[confidential]

Next week peeps!

11th May 2014 | Categories: 2014 | Leave A Comment »

Dead Pool 4th May 2014

Without doubt this week’s big news is the sad death  of Bob Hoskins at the age of 71. You may remember back in 2012 that I reported that he was retiring due to Parkinson’s Disease and I urged you all to remember to put his name down on your lists, which nobody did. *sigh*. So 79 points could have been yours if you had followed my advice. If only I had listened to myself…

Anyhow, onwards and upwards they say, lots to cover this week, so let’s make a start!

Look Who You Could Have Had:

• DJ Rashad, 34, American footwork disc jockey, blood clot in leg.
• DJ E-Z Rock, 46, American hip-hop musician (Rob Base and DJ E-Z Rock).
• Jane Macnaught, 55, British television producer (Coronation Street, Stars in their Eyes).
• Aleksandra Dranka, 110, Polish supercentenarian, nation’s oldest person.
• Al Feldstein, 88, American writer and editor (Mad, Tales from the Crypt).
• Bob Hoskins, 71, English actor (Who Framed Roger Rabbit, Mona Lisa, Hook), pneumonia.
• Clayton Lockett, 38, American convicted murderer, heart attack after botched lethal injection.
• Walter Walsh, 106, American FBI agent and Olympic shooter (1948), longest-living Olympic competitor.

In Other News

There’s been a slight uproar over in Oklahoma where they tried and finally succeeded in executing Clayton Lockett. The execution has been called ‘cruel, inhuman and degrading’ and may have been in violation of the Human Rights Laws. Lockett was restrained to a gurney and because no suitable vein could be found, the needle was administered to his groin. Due to ‘this and that’, it took Lockett 1hr 44 minutes to finally die. Now, you have to remember that this guy was convicted in 2000 and sentenced to death for the kidnap and murder of 19 year old, Stephanie Neiman, during a home invasion the previous year. She survived the initial assault, but Lockett ordered two accomplices to bury her alive. He also raped one of her friends. I’m sure nobody seemed to care for her human rights when she was being killed nor did anyone give a shit for her friend who was raped. The cunt got what he deserved, it’s just a shame it didn’t take longer.

Sir Roger Bannister, the first man to run a sub-4min mile whilst someone had a clock in their hand has revealed he has Parkinson’s Disease. The 85-year-old said he had known about the degenerative nervous disease for three years but only revealed it in a BBC radio interview marking the anniversary of his run in Oxford on 6 May, 1954. Now, please take note, I reported a similar story about Bob Hoskins! Hear what I’m saying??

Wilko Johnson, the former Dr Feelgood guitarist has had a major operation in an attempt to treat his pancreatic cancer. Johnson was diagnosed at the end of 2012 and was given 10 months to live after rejecting chemotherapy. But he defied the doctors’ predictions and it was recently found that his tumour was less aggressive than normal. He has now had the “football-size tumour” removed as well as his pancreas, spleen and part of his stomach. He has understandably cancelled 14 concerts.

Cellist Julian Lloyd Webber has announced that he has been forced to stop playing due to a herniated disc in his neck which has reduced the power in his right arm. The 63 year old is said to be devastated, not as devastated as us Julian! His final performance as a cellist will be on 2nd May at the Forum Theatre, Malvern. By the time you’ve read this he may have already committed suicide!  

Paul Simon and his wife Edie Brickell have been arrested and charged with disorderly conduct. Officers were called to the couple’s New Canaan home at about 8pm on Saturday to investigate “a family dispute”. The pair, who have been married for more than 20 years, appeared in Norwalk Superior Court on Monday. A police spokesman said there had been “aggressiveness on both sides”. Officers who responded found minor injuries and believed it was a case of domestic violence, he went on. He did not confirm who was injured. Simon, 72, first found fame as one half of folk duo Simon and Garfunkel, while Brickell, 48, was lead singer of Edie Brickell & New Bohemians. Let’s see how bad this gets, nothing like a 72 year old being beaten up by his wife eh?

And finally, I can’t sign off without mentioning that slimy twat, Max Clifford. You may have seen that the fuckwit has been imprisoned on eight counts of  indecent assault against women and girls aged 14 to 19 alleged to have taken place between 1966 and 1984. The 71 year old is now serving 8 years for his part in raping young girls. I can’t say I ever liked the cunt, I hold him personally responsible for all the gutter press we now have to suffer. He’s ruined countless lives for profit and I for one am rejoicing that he’s now having to look for soap in a prison shower. It seems the only PR he was really interested in were paedophile rings. Good riddance! 

On This Day

• 1471 – Wars of the Roses: The Battle of Tewkesbury: Edward IV defeats a Lancastrian Army and kills Edward, Prince of Wales.
• 1675 – King Charles II of England orders the construction of the Royal Greenwich Observatory.
• 1904 – The United States begins construction of the Panama Canal.
• 1904 – Charles Stewart Rolls meets Frederick Henry Royce at the Midland Hotel in Manchester, England.
• 1932 – In Atlanta, Georgia, mobster Al Capone begins serving an eleven-year prison sentence for tax evasion.
• 1979 – Margaret Thatcher becomes the first female Prime Minister of the United Kingdom.
• 2000 – Ken Livingstone becomes the first Mayor of London.

Deaths

• 1471 – Edward of Westminster, Prince of Wales (b. 1453)
• 1984 – Diana Dors, English actress (b. 1931)
• 2009 – Dom DeLuise, American actor, director, and producer (b. 1933)

May 4th Star Wars Special by KoA

Since this is officially Star Wars Day, I thought I’d astound you with some facts and deaths relating to the epic saga. Firstly lets see who has already died that had connections with Star Wars:

• Graham Ashley portrayed Gold Five in Episode IV. He died on October 30, 1979.
• Eddie Byrne portrayed General Vanden Willard in Episode V. He died on August 2, 1981.
• Richard Marquand directed Star Wars Episode VI: Return of the Jedi. He died on September 4, 1987 of a heart attack.
• Alex McCrindle portrayed Jan Dodonna in Episode IV. He passed away April 20, 1990.
• Anthony Lang portrayed BoShek in Episode IV. He died on March 2, 1992.
• Peter Cushing portrayed Grand Moff Tarkin in A New Hope. He passed away in August 1994.
• Tarik, the primary source for the voice of Chewbacca passed away in 1994 due to congestive heart failure. He was a black bear living in San Jose’s Happy Hollow Zoo.
• Sebastian Shaw portrayed Anakin Skywalker in the original version of Return of the Jedi. He died December 23, 1994.
• Morris Bush played Dengar in Episode V. He died in 1995.
• Jeremy Sinden portrayed Tiree in Episode IV. He died on May 29, 1996.
• Don Henderson portrayed General Cassio Tagge in Episode IV. He died on June 22, 1997.
• Jack Purvis portrayed the Chief Jawa and Ugnaught in Episodes IV and V, as well as Teebo in Episode 6. He died in November of 1997.
• Alec Guinness portrayed Obi-Wan Kenobi in Episodes IV-VI. He died August 5, 2000.
• Shelagh Fraser portrayed Aunt Beru in Episode IV. She died September 13, 2000.
• Ted Burnett portrayed Wuher the Bartender in Episode IV. He died on October 1, 2001.
• Claire Davenport portrayed Yarna d’al’ Gargan in Episode VI. She died on March 4, 2002.
• Des Webb portrayed the wampa in Episode V. He died on May 21, 2002.
• Bruce Boa portrayed General Rieekan in Episode V. He died on April 17, 2004.
• Michael Sheard portrayed Admiral Kendal Ozzel in The Empire Strikes Back. He died on August 31, 2005 after a battle with cancer.
• John Hollis portrayed Lobot in The Empire Strikes Back. He passed away on October 18, 2005.
• William Hootkins portrayed Jek Porkins in A New Hope. He passed away on October 23, 2005 from pancreatic cancer.
• Phil Brown played Owen Lars in Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope. He died on February 9, 2006.
• Stan Winston was a visual effects and makeup artist. He worked on the new Wookiee costumes for The Star Wars Holiday Special. He passed away on June 15, 2008 at the age of 62.
• Irvin Kershner was the director of Star Wars Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back. He died on November 29, 2010 after a long illness.
• Colin Higgins, who played Wedge Antilles in the briefing scene of Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope. He passed away in December, 2012.
• Richard LeParmentier, who played the part of Admiral Motti in Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope, passed away on April 15, 2013, at age 66.
• Christopher Malcolm played Rogue Two in Star Wars Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back. He died on February 15, 2014 at age 67.
• Malcolm Tierney played Shann Childsen in Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope. He died on February 18, 2014 at age 75. 

As you can see, there’s not many left! You should seriously consider listing all the main actors on next years lists, especially with some of them reaching a ripe old age, Harrison Ford (71), Mark Hamill (62), Carrie Fisher (57), Anthony Daniels (68), Kenny Baker (79), Peter Mayhew (69), David Prowse (78), James Earl Jones (83), Billy Dee Williams (77), Frank Oz (69) and Ian McDiarmid (69), just to name a few. 

You may have also heard that before the final parts of filming for Star Wars were to be completed, Mark Hamill aka Luke Skywalker was involved in a car crash. The plucky kid managed to squish his face in and had to have some reconstructive surgery to make him look human again. Luckily, all of his scenes were completed by using a stand-in, but for filming Empire, a scene had to be added of Skywalker being mauled by a Wampa to explain his facial disfigurement. 

Last Week’s Birthdays

Michelle Pfeiffer (56), Jerry Seinfeld (60), Jessica Alba (33), Jay Leno (64), David Beckham (39), Uma Thurman (44), Christina Hendricks (39), Willie Nelson (81), Daniel Day Lewis (57), Penelope Cruz (40), Frankie Valli (80), Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson (42), Kirsten Dunst (32), Casey Kasem (82), Andre Agassi (44), Burt Young (74), Ann-Margret (73), Harper Lee (88), Sheena Easton (55), Julie Benz (42), Wes Anderson (45), Anouk Aimee (82), Kate Mulgrew (59), Jane Campion (60), Ray Parker Jr (60), Englebert Humperdinck (78) and Lily Allen (29).

2013 League Table

[confidential]

Next week peeps!

4th May 2014 | Categories: 2014 | Leave A Comment »

Dead Pool 27th April 2014

Salutations my avid readers and fellow followers of death! Surprisingly, no points this week, even though the oldest man in Germany died and the oldest guy to have been verified died too, I thought you lot were better than this!  I implore you  all to take note of all the birthdays for last week, almost three quarters of them are ripe for the coffin, many names to keep in mind for your lists next year, and don’t be squeamish, just because you idolise them doesn’t mean you can’t list them!

Look Who You Could Have Had:

• Rubin Carter, 76, American middleweight boxer wrongfully convicted of murder, subject of “Hurricane” and The Hurricane, prostate cancer.
• Gertrud Henze, 112, German supercentenarian, oldest person in Germany.
• Arturo Licata, 111, Italian supercentenarian, world’s oldest verified living man.
• Mark Shand, 62, British travel writer and conservationist, injuries sustained from a fall.

In Other News

Lets start off with a feel good story. A couple who held hands at breakfast every morning even after 70 years of marriage have died 15 hours apart. Helen Felumlee (92), of Nashport, Ohio, died on April 12. Her husband, 91-year-old Kenneth Felumlee, died the next morning. The couple’s eight children say the two had been inseparable since meeting as teenagers, once sharing the bottom of a bunk bed on a ferry rather than sleeping one night apart. Let’s wish the family well and hope both life-long lovers are happy in whatever afterlife they believed in.

Proving that God does have a sense of humour, a man has been crushed to death by a giant crucifix dedicated to Pope John Paul II, days before the said ex-pontiff is to be canonised. In a bizarre coincidence, the 21-year-old man was reported to have been living in a street named after Pope John XXIII, who is also going to be canonised this weekend. Perhaps God is sending a message, that mere men, no matter how pious and good they were in life, were just men. Who said religion was good for you?

French free-climber, Alain Robert, also known as the ‘French Spiderman’, climbed the Galaxy Macau Tower bare-handed on Wednesday. The climbing stunt was a part of a series of events and activities planned to promote the film, The Amazing Spider-Man 2. Surprisingly, Robert has never been listed on any of the Dead Pool lists, ever! One would think that a man that loves to climb buildings with his bare hands and a bag of chalk should be listed each year, but who am I to judge. If you fancy feeling a bit sick to the bottom of your stomach, Google some of his climbs.

On This Day

• 1521 – Battle of Mactan: Explorer Ferdinand Magellan is killed by natives in the Philippines led by chief Lapu-Lapu.
• 1667 – The blind and impoverished John Milton sells the copyright of Paradise Lost for £10.
• 1840 – Foundation stone for new Palace of Westminster, London, is laid by wife of Sir Charles Barry.
• 1950 – Apartheid: In South Africa, the Group Areas Act is passed formally segregating races.
• 1981 – Xerox PARC introduces the computer mouse.
• 1992 – Betty Boothroyd becomes the first woman to be elected Speaker of the British House of Commons in its 700-year history.

Deaths

• 1521 – Ferdinand Magellan, Portuguese explorer (b. 1480)
• 1882 – Ralph Waldo Emerson, American poet (b. 1803)

Thank Fuck We’re Not All Dead by KoA

There are many instances during our lifetimes that due to some fuck up we should be grateful that we are alive. Could be that your fuck up was not looking when you were crossing the street, for others the fuck up is slightly more grievous. Take for instance, if you were working at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant on 26th April 1986. Yup, 28 years ago this weekend, someone had a bad day at work.

The Chernobyl disaster is the worst nuclear power plant accident in history in terms of cost and resulting deaths, and is one of only two classified as a level 7 event (the maximum classification) on the International Nuclear Event Scale (the other being the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster in 2011). The battle to contain the contamination and avert a greater catastrophe ultimately involved over 500,000 workers and cost an estimated 18 billion rubles. During the accident itself only 31 people died, but long-term effects such as cancers and deformities are still being accounted for.

The disaster began during a systems test, there was a sudden and unexpected power surge, and when an emergency shutdown was attempted, an exponentially larger spike in power output occurred, which led to a reactor vessel rupture and a series of steam explosions. These events exposed the graphite moderator of the reactor to air, causing it to ignite. The rest is probably easier to explain by the word BOOM!

Those of us old enough to remember will recall that the resulting radioactive fallout entered the atmosphere and travelled extensively over the planet. Personally, I remember that the local lamb in Wales was off the menu for decades after, many farmers going under because their livestock was too contaminated to sell and their lands being unusable, such sanctions only recently having been lifted.

So after the area was brought under some kind of control, an area extending 30 kilometres in all directions from the plant was officially called the “zone of alienation”. It is largely uninhabited, except for about 300 residents who have refused to leave. The area has largely reverted to forest, and has been overrun by wildlife because of a lack of competition with humans for space and resources. Even today, radiation levels are so high that the workers responsible for rebuilding the sarcophagus are only allowed to work five hours a day for one month before taking 15 days of rest. Ukrainian officials estimate the area will not be safe for human life again for another 20,000 years.

So the next time you’re having a bad day at work, just think how much worse it could be!

Last Week’s Birthdays

George Takei (77), Ryan O’Neal (73), Iggy Pop (67), The Queen (88), Tony Danza (63), Jack Nicholson (77), Lee Majors (75), Glen Campbell (78), Michael Moore (60), Shirley MMacLaine (80), Barbra Streisand (72), Hank Azaria (50), Al Pacino (70), Channing Tatum (33), Renee Zellweger (45), Jessica Lange (65), Clint Howard (55), Andy Serkis (50), Carmen Electra (42), Charles Grodin (79), Andie MacDowell (56), James McAvoy (35), Charlotte Rae (88), Estelle Harris (86), John Waters (68), Sheryl Lee (47), Djimon Hounsou (50), Len Goodman (70), Bjorn Ulvaeus (69), Joan Chen (53) and Jet Li (51).

2013 League Table

[confidential]

Next week peeps!

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

Dead Pool 20th April 2014

Welcome all, on what  would have been Adolf Hitler’s  125th birthday, no doubt had  things turned out differently, we’d be celebrating a national holiday, oh, hang on, we are! Some other guy died, thus creating the Easter Break. Lucky eh? Perhaps we should take this as a precedent and murder other holy people every few weeks so we can have a couple of days off each month. Anyone care to offer up some names?

No deaths last week, so no points, again a slight dearth of celebrity deaths, but when has that held us back?

Look Who You Could Have Had:

• Edna Doré, 92, British actress (EastEnders), emphysema.
• Gabriel García Márquez, 87, Colombian author (One Hundred Years of Solitude, Love in the Time of Cholera), laureate of the Nobel Prize in Literature (1982), pneumonia.
• Derek Cooper, 88, British broadcaster (The Food Programme) and food journalist, Parkinson’s disease.

In Other News

BBC News presenter George Alagiah has been diagnosed with bowel cancer. The presenter of the BBC News at Six, Ten and GMT on BBC World News will take a break from his on-air duties while he undergoes treatment. A statement from the BBC said: “He’s grateful for all the good wishes he has received thus far and is optimistic for a positive outcome.” Alagiah, 58, first joined the BBC in 1989 and spent many years as one of the BBC’s leading foreign correspondents before moving to presenting, reporting on events such as the genocide in Rwanda and the conflict in Kosovo.

Bob Wilson, the former Arsenal goalkeeper and broadcaster, has been diagnosed with prostate cancer. Wilson, 72, who played more than 230 times for Arsenal during the 1960s and 70s and  who was capped twice by Scotland, has cancelled work and charity commitments while he has treatment. The former BBC TV presenter said: “I am very confident that the treatment I am receiving will prove successful and kindly ask that my privacy is respected at this time.”

After two sad pieces of news, I feel we need a feel-good story, so lets have a laugh at David Cameron being stung by a jellyfish. Whilst bobbing gently in the Spanish waters of Lanzarote, the prize cunt was attacked by an aquatic hero. It seems other bathers warned the PM that there were ‘loads of jellies down there’ so he rushed in to save his children. If only he’d do the same thing for this country. Sadly the sting he received, which left him shouting in pain, didn’t even require medical treatment. The not so transparent creature with a frightening lack of substance will be returning to work at Westminster next week, the jelly fish will be awarded the OBE in this years honours list.  

Pensions minister, Steve Webb, is keen to tell pensioners upon their day of retirement how long they have left to live. Estimates of life expectancy would be based on factors such as gender, where they live, and whether they smoke. The information would help them plan their finances more efficiently, according to the minister. It’s a shame he feels that people who have paid into the system all their working lives are suddenly a burden upon us all, I’d hate to be his father. If you feel the need to guesstimate your date of demise, have a go here. Personally I’m going to die on Saturday 23rd May 2037, so I won’t even see my retirement, much to the joy of Steve Webb. 

On This Day

• 1862– Louis Pasteur and Claude Bernard complete the experiment falsifying the theory of spontaneous generation.
• 1902 – Pierre and Marie Curie refine radium chloride.
• 1918– Manfred von Richthofen, aka The Red Baron, shoots down his 79th and 80th victims, his final victories before his death the following day.
• 1926– Western Electric  announce Vitaphone, a process to add sound to film.
• 1939– Adolf Hitler’s 50th birthday is celebrated as a national holiday in Nazi Germany.
• 1951– Dan Gavriliu performs the first surgical replacement of a human organ.
• 1964– BBC Two launches with a power cut because of the fire at Battersea Power Station.
• 1968–English politician Enoch Powell makes his controversial Rivers of Blood speech.
• 1999 – Columbine High School massacre: Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold kill 13 people and injure 24 others before committing suicide at Columbine High School in Columbine, Colorado.
• 2010–The Deepwater Horizon drilling rig explodes in the Gulf of Mexico, killing eleven workers and beginning an oil spill that would last six months.

Deaths

• 1912– Bram Stoker, Irish author (b. 1847)
• 1991– Don Siegel, American director and producer (b. 1912)
• 1992– Benny Hill, English comedian and actor (b. 1924)
• 1999– Rick Rude, American wrestler (b. 1958)

Horrible Ways to Die #6 by Dexychik

In the spirit of Easter, the theme of the week is crucifixion.

Now, crucifixion was used by Greeks, Romans, Persians and Carthginians as capital punishment. In terms of the gospel, Jesus probably didn’t carry his own cross to Golgotha, because it would have been enormously heavy. However, the victim usually carried the crosspiece of their cross, before being flogged.  This was the part their hands were nailed or bound to.

Now, the placement of the nails are not precisely known because there’s little archaeological evidence, and translations are unreliable, but the nails were either put through the palm of the hand, or through the radial part of the arm, using the arm bones as support to stop the arm being dragged down over the nail. Of the two, the palm would be more painful if the nerves in the palm were severed.

Once nailed to the crossbar, the crossbar was nailed to a vertical stake. The feet of the victim were nailed into place, both at ankle and through the sole into a support just below the feet, again to stop the feet slipping. The cross wouldn’t be particularly huge, probably suspending the victim only a couple of feet or so above the ground.

So far so hideous.

Crucifixion was a very slow death. It took days. Part of the reason the gospel crucifixion is different is that Jesus died in three hours. There is an explanation in the text – someone pushed a vinegar-soaked sponge into Jesus’ face. He then threw his head back and died. Throwing your head back when being crucified will cause your chest to expand, but not be able to deflate again. It’s likely that Jesus, or whoever the writer based the story on, suffocated. People were not usually tortured once up – the Roman stabbing Jesus to check he was dead was probably because his death was unexpectedly quick. The legs of crucified people were often broken to speed death up.

Death was usually from a combination of blood-loss, shock, exposure, and dehydration. Infection could also play a part – imagine how long you’d be hanging for a localised infection to kick in.

People could be crucified upside down, which meant a much faster death. There were also different models of cross, aside from the tradition one of Christianity.  The crux immissa had four arms to attach the limbs of the victim. The crux commissa had three arms, and the crux decussata was the same as a St Andrew’s Cross, allowing the victim to be spreadeagled and mutilated.

The body was left on the cross until it rotted away, as a deterrent. And the practice continued in Japan until the 19th century, although most other countries had stopped by the middle ages. Non-lethal crucifixion is occasionally practised as a devotional act, frowned upon by the Roman Catholic church, and as a punishment in Yemen.

Happy Easter! Next time, being broken on a wheel!

Last Week’s Birthdays

Adrien Brody (41), Loretta Lynn (82), Anthony Michael Hall (46), Emma Thompson (55), Emma Watson (24), Seth Rogen (32), Benedict XVI (87), Ellen Barkin (60), Victoria Beckham (40), Jennifer Garner (42), Conan O’Brien (51), James Franco (36), Tim Curry (68), Edward Fox (77), Al Green (68), Ron Perlman (64), Julie Christie (74), Robert Carlyle (53), Sarah Michelle Gellar (37), Samantha Fox (48), Bobby Vinton (79), Jimmy Osmond (51), Martin Lawrence (49), Lukas Haas (38), Jan Hammer (66), Sean Bean (55), Hayley Mills (68), James Woods (67) and Rick Moranis (61).

2013 League Table

[confidential]

Next week peeps!

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

Dead Pool 13th April 2014

Bit of a slow week this week, maybe because I  robbed Mickey Rooney and Peaches Geldof from Monday onto last weeks newsletter, I only have myself to blame, I should write things on time! So we only have the sad deaths of Adrian Mole creator, Sue Townsend, and the early death of The  Ultimate Warrior to entertain us. With Warriors demise, its perhaps pertinent to take a look at the ageing WWF wrestlers, all of which will be struggling to keep their steroid addled hearts going, and lets face it, all that shouting and brutal jumping around in front of the American public is enough to put a strain on anyone!

Look Who You Could Have Had:

• The Ultimate Warrior, 54, American Hall of Fame professional wrestler (WWE).
• Sue Townsend, 68, British novelist and playwright (Adrian Mole series), stroke.
• And a whole horde of others that I didn’t recognise at all!

In Other News

By the time you have read this we will know if Mo Farah has won the London Marathon to not, or perhaps he’s actually dead a mile before the finishing line if last month’s collapse at the New York Marathon is anything to go by! Mo was unconscious for three minutes after finishing second and carted off in a wheelchair, all because he suffered a slight fall and got a bit cold. Doesn’t sound all that fit to me! Let’s wish him well anyway, nobody has him on their lists, so him dying would be a bit of a waste!

The former Bishop of Gloucester, The Rt Rev Peter Ball was due to appear in court to answer allegations of sex offences dating back to the 1970’s but was too unwell to appear. The 82 year old faces charges of fucking little boys in his care. I think this is the same guy I agreed to spend the evening with incarcerated in a prison cell for charity, thank fuck that fell through, otherwise if he’d tried anything I’d have been one facing a lengthy jail sentence for the murder of a Bishop! Let’s hope the dirty old cunt dies in jail.

It’s sad to hear that the remains of Mickey Rooney are being fought over by his relatives. The 93 year old disinherited his wife and all of his children in his last will, leaving is £10k legacy to his stepson who served as his caregiver until he died. I bet when they began all their court litigations they expected to find a bit more than £10,000. Looks like the lawyers are going to win and the family will end up with large bills and a rotting corpse to deal with.

On This Day

• 1111 – Henry V is crowned Holy Roman Emperor.
• 1613 – Samuel Argall captures Native American princess Pocahontas in Passapatanzy, Virginia to ransom her for some English prisoners held by her father.
• 1796 – The first elephant ever seen in the United States arrives from India.
• 1960 – The United States launches Transit 1-B, the world’s first satellite navigation system.
• 1964 – At the Academy Awards, Sidney Poitier becomes the first African-American male to win the Best Actor award for the 1963 film Lilies of the Field.
• 1970 – An oxygen tank aboard Apollo 13 explodes, putting the crew in great danger and causing major damage to the spacecraft while en route to the Moon.
• 1997 – Tiger Woods becomes the youngest golfer to win the Masters Tournament.

Deaths

• 1975 – Larry Parks, American actor (b. 1914)
• 2001 – Robert Moon, American postal inspector, created the ZIP code (b. 1917)
• 2004 – Caron Keating, English-Irish television host (b. 1962)

Death Row Prisoners Last Meals by KoA

This week we take a look at what Ángel Nieves Díaz ate before he was lethally injected for the crime of murder, even though he protested his innocence until he  died.  On December 13, 2006, Nieves Díaz was executed at the Florida State Prison in Raiford. He did not order a last meal, but was served a prison menu of shredded turkey with taco seasoning, shredded cheese, rice, pinto beans, tortilla shells, apple crisp, and iced tea. He also refused this meal. So facing his death on an empty stomach, the poor chap was injected straight through the vein and instead of dying within the stipulated 7.5 minutes, it took over an hour. I bet he regretted his decision not to eat then…

Horrible Ways to Die #5 – Rabies!  by Dexychik

Rabies is a disease generally associated with dogs, but any mammal can catch it, including humans. It’s more commonly passed on by bat bite than dog. It’s always been rare in the west, but is not eradicated: up to 55,000 people a year die of it worldwide, mainly in Africa and Asia. There is no treatment, except for vaccination, which can be administered after a bite. The vaccine is notable because it was one of the earliest invented, second only to smallpox.

The bugger of rabies is that it can take a very long time to manifest. Usually it’s within a few months, sometimes as soon as a week, but it has been reported up to six years after exposure. Although the vaccine is generally successful at preventing it, if it gets to your central nervous system, you die.

The early symptoms are a fever and a bit of irritation around the entry site. However, once it reaches the brain or spinal cord, it is dramatic. You suffer paralysis and insanity, usually of the paranoid, terrified type, before lapsing into unconsciousness. It used to be called hydrophobia, because it’s common to develop an absolutely hysterical fear of water. This isn’t helped by the mouth overproducing saliva, which is what gives rabid dogs the characteristic ‘foaming at the mouth’ appearance. If a drink is so much as suggested to someone with rabies, their whole throat and larynx spasms.

Thankfully, death follows within 10 days in almost all cases, so you don’t have to suffer long. But probably best to cough up for a vaccine if you’re travelling to areas where it’s common.

Next time! Being broken on a wheel!

Last Week’s Birthdays

Kirsten Stewart (24), Dennis Quaid (60), Jenna Jameson (40), David Letterman (67), Shannen Doherty (43), Hugh Hefner (88), Paul Rudd (45), Claire Danes (35), Russell Crowe (50), Ed O’Neill (68), Zach Braff (39), Robin Wright (48), Andy Garcia (58), Billy Dee Williams (77), Steven Seagal (62), Saoirse Ronan (20), John Ratzenberger (67), Francis Ford Coppola (75), Jackie Chan (60), Julian Lennon (51), Joss Stone (27), Jennifer Morrison (35), James Garner (86), Wayne Rogers (81), Patricia Arquette (46), Max von Sydow (85), Omar Sharif (82), Haley Joel Osment (26) and Lisa Stansfield (48).

2013 League Table

[confidential]

Next Week peeps!

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

Dead Pool 6th April 2014

Evening all! Let me start by apologising for the late email and blog post, I have been very busy. Yes, I do have a life outside of writing this newsletter, I know you don’t believe me, but I do! Actually, because nothing much was happening death-wise, I decided to gather all of the worlds celebrities to explain that we needed some points action, so Micky Rooney and Peaches Geldof decided to ‘take one for the team’, thus giving us something to talk about.

Thanks to Rooney; Julie, Jim and Paul G. have scored 57 points each, which gives us a new points leader! Alas, nobody had Peaches, sad although her death is, she would have made an excellent Maverick for someone. Best keep an eye on the rest of the relatives now, suicide runs in that family after all…

Look Who You Could Have Had:

• Frankie Knuckles, 59, American disc jockey and record producer, complications from diabetes.
• Bob Larbey, 79, British comedy scriptwriter (Please Sir!, The Good Life, As Time Goes By).
• Phantog, 75, Chinese Tibetan mountaineer, first female to climb Mount Everest from Tibetan (North) side.
• Arthur Smith, 93, American musician and songwriter (“Guitar Boogie“, “Dueling Banjos”).
• Alan Davie, 93, Scottish painter and musician.
• Peter Matthiessen, 86, American author (At Play in the Fields of the Lord, The Snow Leopard), leukemia.
• John Pinette, 50, American comedian and actor (The Punisher, Junior), pulmonary embolism.
• Mickey Rooney, 93, American actor (The Black Stallion, Babes in Arms, Night at the Museum), won Emmy Award (Bill).
• Peaches Geldof, 25, English television presenter, writer and model.

In Other News 

For those of you who thought Michael Jackson was dead and gone, well, you may have been mistaken. The former King of Pop hasn’t let a mere formality as being dead keep him away from entertaining the masses, he’s bringing out a new album  in May, with no less than eight new tracks! Obviously Michael is hiding away with Elvis somewhere, producing posthumous No.1’s, which will annoy every living musician, as we honest consumers of shit, will buy up each album and make sure some undeserving music executive gets rich on the bleaching bones in Jacksons grave.

Everyones favourite Russian, Vladimir Putin, has finally had his divorce finalised. I’m sure that his ex-wife Lyudmila is now shitting in her pants wondering if she’ll end up in a gulag or just strapped to a nuclear warhead which will soon be raining down upon the Ukraine. Best keep an eye on her welfare, you never know with these megalomaniac types. Putin himself has made the transition quite easily though, rumours have it that he’s shagging the Olympic gymnast Alina Kabayeva, so it’s no surprise he’s given the old bag the push.

Good news to all television lovers, that old prancing twat, Sir Bruce Forsyth, has finally admitted defeat and decided to retire after what seems like 800 years in the business. Brucie announced that he will still carry out a few pre-recorded Strictly specials for us to endure, lets hope the 86 year old croaks before that happens, and he even has plans to tread the boards of the theatre, hopefully the old doddering cunt will fall off the stage so we all score some much needed points.

Michael Schumacher is looking like he might pull through the ‘lettuce’ to enter the ‘dribbling turnip’ stage of his recovery. The former F1 champion is now showing ‘moments of consciousness and awakening’, much like I do most days at work, so I’d assume he’s in perfect health and just needs to get off his arse and work, much like Iain Duncan Smith would want him to.

The final Monty Python reunion show will be “the last time we’ll be working together”, Michael Palin has said, which sort of  suggests he thinks one of them is about to die. Seeing they’re all in their 70’s, it’s now a good bet to start listing them. My money is on Cleese although Idle is looking a bit mummified recently.

On This Day

• 1199 – King Richard I of England dies from an infection following the removal of an arrow from his shoulder.
• 1830 – The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, the original church of the Latter Day Saint movement, is organised by Joseph Smith, Jr. and others at Fayette or Manchester, New York.
• 1869 – Celluloid is patented.
• 1895 – Oscar Wilde is arrested in the Cadogan Hotel, London after losing a libel case against the Marquess of Queensberry.
• 1896 – In Athens, the opening of the first modern Olympic Games is celebrated, 1,500 years after the original games are banned by Roman Emperor Theodosius I.
• 1924 – First round-the-world flight commences.
• 1930 – Gandhi raises a lump of mud and salt and declares, “With this, I am shaking the foundations of the British Empire,” beginning the Salt Satyagraha.
• 1965 – Launch of Early Bird, the first communications satellite to be placed in geosynchronous orbit.
• 1974 – The Swedish pop band ABBA wins the Eurovision Song Contest 1974 with the song “Waterloo“, launching their international career.

Deaths

• 1199 – Richard I of England (b. 1157)
• 1528 – Albrecht Dürer, German painter, engraver, and mathematician (b. 1471)
• 1992 – Isaac Asimov, Russian-American author and educator (b. 1920)

Death Row Prisoners Last Meals by KoA

This week we have Teresa Lewis’ last meal. You might remember her as the only female on Death Row prior to her execution by lethal injection in 2010. She was sentenced to death for the murder of her husband and her stepson which she thought she could get away with and profit from a $250,000 insurance policy her stepson had taken out before he was deployed as an Army reservist in Iraq.

Shortly before she was to become the 12th woman executed in the US, Teresa dined on the following:

• Fried Chicken
• Sweet peas with butter
• Apple Pie
• Dr Pepper

Rather dull if you ask me, no custard on her apple pie either, she was truly a mentalist!

Last Week’s Birthdays

Warren Beatty (77), Eric Clapton (69), Robbie Coltrane (64), MC Hammer (51), Piers Morgan (49), Celine Dion (46), Norah Jones (35), Richard Chamberlain (80), Shirley Jones (80), Christopher Walken (71), Rhea Perlman (66), Ewan McGregor (43), Debbie Reynolds (82), Ali MacGraw (75), Linda Hunt (69), Emmylou Harris (67), Michael Fassbender (37), Alec Baldwin (56), Eddie Murphy (53), Leona Lewis (29), Amanda Bynes (28), Hugo Weaving (54), Robert Downey Jr. (49), David Blaine (41), Jane Asher (68), Agnetha Faltskog (64), Mitch Pileggi (62) and Pharrell Williams (41).

2013 League Table

[confidential]

Next week peeps!

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

Dead Pool 30th March 2014

Welcome all, on this auspicious day where we see Batman turning 75 and the terrible news that gardeners are facing a national shortage of fencing. Oh, also gay people are now legally allowed to get married. As you see, the world is ending. I’m sure God will soon cause Gran Canaria to tumble in the sea thus sending a tsunami of gay destruction towards Brighton, or maybe life will just carry on as usual. Congratulations to anyone who actually got married this weekend, even an old cynic like me likes to see a romantic event from time to time, although I’m just there for the free food and booze…

Look Who You Could Have Had:

• James Rebhorn, 65, American actor (Scent of a Woman, Independence Day, Homeland), melanoma.
• Mickey Duff, 84, Polish-born British boxing manager and promoter, International Boxing Hall of Fame inductee (1999).
• Adolfo Suárez, 81, Spanish politician and lawyer, Prime Minister (1976–1981), Duke of Suárez (since 1981), respiratory infection.
• Jerry Roberts, 93, British wartime codebreaker, member of the Testery unit.
• Jeffery Dench, 86, British actor (First Knight).
• Derek Martinus, 82, British television director (Doctor Who, Blake’s 7, Z-Cars), Alzheimer’s disease.
• Kate O’Mara, 74, English actress (Dynasty, Triangle).

In Other News

Coronation Street actress Barbara Knox, 80, has been arrested on suspicion of drink-driving. In what we can only call a total fuck up on her part, Knox drove to the police station to see her daughter whom had earlier been arrested for the same offence. Respect to the old codger though, still motoring at 80, but driving to a police station whilst pissed wasn’t the best of ideas.  She’s now on police bail pending further inquiries, fuck knows what they will be.

Good news for all, clowns are faced with extinction!! There are only around 100 registered clowns in the whole of the UK nowadays, which we can all be thankful for. Blame is being thrown towards their depiction in horror films, I say they were bloody creepy anyway. Also their chosen habitat is under threat, the travelling circus, which is also in dramatic decline as nobody wants to see grown men covered in make-up throw glitter over each other whilst they drop their trousers in front of children. Lets hope that mimes are also included in this terminal collapse of clownkind!

The media are trying to frighten the bejesus out of everyone by saying ebola is about to spread around the world. The initial outbreak in Guinea spread to the capital, killing around 60 people, but apparently it wasn’t even ebola, just some other terrible disease. But luckily people were actually dying in neighbouring Liberia and Sierra Leone, thus giving the media a lifeline.  However, a Canadian man was reported to have the virus after returning from West Africa. After the initial alarm, it was found he just had some malaria. So panic everyone, we’re all going to die! Let’s blame those gay marriages!

The celebrity paedophiles are slowly being sorted out. Jimmy Tarbuck has been released without charge. The veteran comic, 74, was released after a year on police bail after being accused of rogering a small boy. So along with Michael Le Vell, Bill Roache, Jim Davidson, Dave Lee Travis and a few other slightly less known ‘stars’, the list is dwindling very quickly. All we have now is the Hairy Cornflakes retrial and the upcoming trials of Rolf Harris and Paul Gambaccini and the potential downfall of the celebrity publicist, Max Clifford. Could this have been a witch hunt? Who cares…

And finally, if you’re feeling a bit tired after a shag, think about poor Jonathan, a giant tortoise on the island of St Helena. At 182 he still has to service three females even though he’s half blind from cataracts and relies on his hearing to find his mates. Jonathan loves to have his neck stroked and its said that he can extend his head from his shell to a surprising length. He loves his vegetables and can belch like a trooper. ‘Tortoises may be slow, but they are also very noisy, especially when they mate’, said his handler. ‘A noise like a loud harsh escape of steam from a giant battered old kettle, often rounded off with a deep oboe-like grunt.’ Unfortunately, Jonathan’s trysts have not produced young – thus far.

On This Day

• 1867 – Alaska is purchased from Russia for $7.2 million, about 2-cent/acre ($4.19/km²), by United States Secretary of State William H. Seward.
• 1981 – President Ronald Reagan is shot in the chest outside a Washington, D.C., hotel by John Hinckley, Jr. Another two people are wounded at the same time.

Deaths

• 1986 – James Cagney, American actor and dancer (b. 1899)
• 2002 – Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother of the United Kingdom (b. 1900)
• 2003 – Michael Jeter, American actor (b. 1952)

Death Row Prisoners Last Meals

This weeks last meal belongs to Ted Bundy! You’ll remember Ted as the charming and handsome American serial killer, rapist, kidnapper and necrophile with around 35 homicides to his name. Ted died in the electric chair at Raiford Prison in Starke, Florida in 1989, but not before he dined on the following:

Steak (medium rare)
Eggs (over easy)
Hash Browns
Toast
Butter
Jam
Milk
Orange Juice

Alas, this meal wasn’t of his choosing, he actually declined a ‘special’ meal, so what you see here is the traditional last meal given to inmates who don’t feel the need to stuff their faces before they fry.

Horrible Ways to Die #5 – Boiled to Death by Dexychik

Boiled to death can only be described as a cruel and unusual punishment. In Britain, it was only legal for a few years in the sixteenth century. Introduced specifically for the death of a cook who was poisoning the food served to the poor by the Bishop of Rochester, only a handful of people were executed in this manner. One of these occasions was the death of a woman who poisoned her husband in King’s Lynn, where it was said her heart burst from her body and landed in a building. There is still a heart shaped stone to mark this grisly occurrence.

You can be boiled to death in water, oil or tallow (sheep flab). The body doesn’t do well under extreme temperature, either from within or without, and the pain of suffering extensive deep burns would knock you out pretty quickly. Death occurs due to hypovolaemic shock – or blood loss – as the exposed arteries rupture.

Although being boiled to death was, at one point, quite a popular execution method in Europe and Asia, it’s now limited to occasional torture murders in the Middle East. Yum.

Next time! Rabies!

Last Week’s Birthdays

Chaka Khan (61), Amanda Plummer (57), Damon Albarn (46), Perez Hilton (36), Kelly LeBrock (54), Lara Flynn Boyle (44), Alyson Hannigan (40), Aretha Franklin (72), Paul Michael Glaser (71), Elton John (67), Sarah Jessica Parker (49), Leonard Nimoy (83), Alan Arkin (80), James Caan (74), Diana Ross (70), Steven Tyler (66), Martin Short (64), Keira Knightley (29), Julian Glover (79), Michael York (72), Quentin Tarantino (51), Mariah Carey (44), Fergie (39), Dianne Wiest (66), Vince Vaughn (44), Lady GaGa (28), Eric Idle (71), Brendan Gleeson (59), Christopher Lambert (57), Elle Macpherson (51) and Lucy Lawless (46).

2013 League Table

[confidential]

Next week peeps!

30th March 2014 | Categories: 2014 | Leave A Comment »

Dead Pool 23rd March 2014

Welcome once again my morbid minions to the weekly edition of the Dead Pool Newsletter. This week we have a dirge of deaths but no points to award, a new feature for your perusal, and of course, the usual hilarity that ensues from the demises of the famous.

Look Who You Could Have Had:

• Clarissa Dickson Wright, 66, English celebrity chef and television personality (Two Fat Ladies).
• Oswald Morris, 98, British cinematographer (Fiddler on the Roof, The Guns of Navarone, Oliver!).
• L’Wren Scott, 49, American fashion designer and model, suicide by hanging.
• Fred Phelps, 84, American pastor and anti-gay activist, founder of the Westboro Baptist Church.
• Mickey Duff, 84, Polish-born British boxing promoter and manager.

In Other News

Dame Vera Lynn is to celebrate her 97th birthday and 90 years in show business by releasing a new album. The ‘Forces Sweetheart’ will release her new opus in June and it will contain some previously unreleased material and a few old favourites. I’m sure you’re all itching to hear “We’ll Meet Again” in a digital Dolby Surround 5.1 THX remastered version. I know I am!!

Another Dame who is causing a few surprises this week is Dame Angela Lansbury! Yes, I thought she was dead already too. The 88 year old actress has been lavished with praise by critics upon her return to the West End stage as Madame Arcati in The Blythe Spirit. In her first stage role in over 40 years, Lansbury is said to be in ‘sparkling form’ and her depiction of the dance and trance scene is a ‘wonder to behold’.  Almost makes me want to go the theatre…

In one of those amazing and accurate studies, its been found that one in ten people will die during their time in hospital and that death is the ‘core business’ of hospitals. Well, I’m not one to punch holes in an official study, but isn’t the reason that people go to hospitals a huge factor in these results? Guess what, they found that older patients were more likely to die, especially those in the over-85 age bracket! They even based their study in Glasgow, last time I checked only 3 people reached the age of 45 up there due to the copious amount of deep fried pizza they consume on top of the Tennent’s Super and intravenous nicotine patches.

Not to be outdone, another bunch of scientists have discovered that saturated fat doesn’t cause heart disease while so-called ‘healthy’ polyunsaturated fats don’t prevent cardiovascular problems. So, in contrast with decades old nutritional advice, researchers at Cambridge University have found that giving up fatty meat, cream or butter is unlikely to improve your health. They even found that supplements had no benefits whatsoever. So, I have to retract my statement about deep fried pizza in the previous article! I’m off to stuff a pound of butter in my face…

On This Day

• 1801 – Tsar Paul I of Russia is struck with a sword, then strangled, and finally trampled to death inside his bedroom at St. Michael’s Castle.
• 1857 – Elisha Otis‘s first elevator is installed at 488 Broadway New York City.
• 1888 – In England, The Football League, the world’s oldest professional Association Football league, meets for the first time.
• 1919 – In Milan, Italy, Benito Mussolini founds his Fascist political movement.
• 1933 – The Reichstag passes the Enabling Act of 1933, making Adolf Hitler dictator of Germany.
• 1956 – Pakistan becomes the first Islamic republic in the world. (Republic Day in Pakistan).
• 1965 – NASA launches Gemini 3, the United States‘ first two-man space flight (crew: Gus Grissom and John Young).
• 1989 – Stanley Pons and Martin Fleischmann announce their discovery of cold fusion at the University of Utah.
• 1994 – Aeroflot Flight 593 crashes in Siberia when the pilot‘s fifteen-year old son accidentally disengages the autopilot, killing all 75 people on board.
• 2001 – The Russian Mir space station is disposed of, breaking up in the atmosphere before falling into the southern Pacific Ocean near Fiji.

Deaths

• 1964 – Peter Lorre, Slovak-American actor (b. 1904)
• 2011 – Elizabeth Taylor, English-American actress (b. 1932)

Death Row Prisoners Last Meals

Ever wondered what inmates about to fry in the chair ask to eat for their last meal? No, I didn’t either. However, I’m going to share a meal or two with you from time to time as I always find it hard to come up with new meal ideas.

Remember old John Wayne Gacy? He was an American serial killer and rapist, also known as the Killer Clown, who was convicted of the sexual assault and murder of a minimum of 33 teenage boys and young men in a series of killings committed between 1972 and 1978 in Chicago, Illinois. He was convicted and sentenced to death in 1980 but spent a further 14 years on Death Row before he was executed by lethal injection at Statesville Correctional Centre in 1994.

Gacy’s last meal consisted of the following:

• 12 Fried Shrimp
• A bucket of original recipe KFC
• French Fries
• 1 lbs of Strawberries

Prior to being convicted, Gacy had managed three KFC restaurants, which sort of shows some professional pride in his work.

Tasty eh? I sure wouldn’t mind chowing down on this last meal given the chance, but I think I would have been a bit pissed that my strawberries weren’t in a separate bowl. Plus, where are the sauces and dips??

Following his last meal, Gacy was taken to be executed by lethal injection, however due to the inexperience of the Death Row officials the chemicals used solidified in the IV tube, so his death took 18 minutes. His final spoken words were ‘Kiss my ass”. To add insult to injury, they even took out his brain for investigation, finding no abnormalities.

Last Week’s Birthdays

Jerry Lewis (88), Bernado Bertolucci (73), Erik Estrada (65), Patrick Duffy (65), Kurt Russell (63), Gary Sinise (59), Rob Lowe (50), Brad Dourif (64), Irene Cara (55), Vanessa Williams (51), Queen Latifah (44), Ursula Andress (78), Gelnn Close (67), Bruce Willis (59), William Hurt (64), Spike Lee (57), Theresa Russell (57), Holly Hunter (56), Michael Rapaport (44), Timothy Dalton (68), Gary Oldman (56), Matthew Broderick (52), Rosie O’Donnell (52), William Shatner (83), M. Emmet Walsh (79), Andrew Lloyd Webber (66), Matthew Modine (55) and Reese Witherspoon (38).

2013 League Table

[confidential]

Next week peeps!

23rd March 2014 | Categories: 2014 | Leave A Comment »

Dead Pool 16th March 2014

With the death of the great Tony Benn, we have a few points to award. Congratulations to Julie and Chrissy, both scoring 62 points. To be honest I though more of us had him, including me, sadly this wasn’t so. Maybe old Tony should have been more aware of the Ides of March, I know I was and I’m still here! Anyhow, onwards to the frivolity.

Look Who You Could Have Had:

• Hal Douglas, 89, American voice actor and announcer, pancreatic cancer.
• William Clay Ford, Sr., 88, American businessman (Ford Motor Company, Detroit Lions), pneumonia.
• Eileen Colgan, 80, Irish actress (Far and Away, My Left Foot, Angela’s Ashes).
• Bob Crow, 52, British trade unionist, General Secretary of the RMT (since 2002), aneurysm and heart attack.
• Raymond Leslie Morris, 84, British child murderer (Cannock Chase murders), natural causes.
• Tony Benn, 88, British politician, Minister of Technology (1966–70), Secretary of State (1974–79), MP for Bristol South East (1950–60, 1963–83) and Chesterfield (1984–2001).

In Other News

Sadly I have to report the death of Wesley Warren, the man with the biggest testicles in the known universe! You might remember poor Warren from the Channel 4 documentary covering his life before and during his operation to remove his 10 stone balls. Tragically, even though he recovered from his testicular problem, he died of a heart attack related to his diabetes last week. Rest in peace old titan bollocks!

Chris Tarrant is recovering in hospital after suffering a mini-stroke. His manager, Paul Vaughan, said he had been taken ill on a flight to London from Bangkok in Thailand on Saturday and was taken to Charing Cross hospital. The 67-year-old broadcaster had been filming in Asia and South America before falling ill and Vaughan said he would not be going straight back to work after he is discharged,  much to the delight of everyone I’m sure.

After reporting last week that Michael Schumacher was turning into a cabbage, the German seems to be showing signs of improvement. One assumes he’s now a parsnip! Doctors treating the former F1 champion seem to think he’s going to pull through, maybe even reaching the complex state of lettuce by next week! If anyone can, I’m sure Michael can!

Angelina Jolie has confirmed that she is to undergo further preventative cancer surgery after she was subjected to a double mastectomy last year. The 38-year-old actress had the procedure after discovering she was at high risk of developing breast cancer. Jennifer Aniston is said to be punching the air and shouting something about ‘take that Brad…’

And finally a Pakistani martial arts expert has found notoriety after headbutting his way through 155 walnuts in one minute. His record-breaking attempt literally smashed the previous record of 44 walnuts. Surrounded by a crowd of onlookers and officials, Mohammad Rashid proceeded to crack a long line of walnuts laid out on a table using only his forehead. After his minute was up, a breathless Rashid looked pleased with his efforts. However a few of the walnuts clearly got the better of him, as he could be seen wiping away a few spots of blood from his head. One question though.. Why?

On This Day

• 1521 – Ferdinand Magellan reaches the Philippines.
• 1912 – Lawrence Oates, an ill member of Robert Falcon Scott‘s South Pole expedition, left his tent to die, saying: “I am just going outside and may be some time.”
• 1926 – Robert Goddard launches the first liquid-fueled rocket, at Auburn, Massachusetts.
• 1958 – The Ford Motor Company produces its 50 millionth automobile, the Thunderbird, averaging almost a million cars a year since the company’s founding.
• 1968 – General Motors produces its 100 millionth automobile, the Oldsmobile Toronado.
• 1976 – British Prime Minister Harold Wilson resigns, citing personal reasons.
• 1995 – Mississippi formally ratifies the Thirteenth Amendment, becoming the last state to approve the abolition of slavery. The Thirteenth Amendment was officially ratified in 1865.

Deaths

• 37 – Tiberius, Roman emperor (b. 46 BC)

Last Week’s Birthdays

Juliette Binoche (50), Chuck Norris (74), Shannon Tweed (57), Sharon Stone (56), Robin Thicke (37), Olivia Wilde (30), Emeli Sande (27), Johnny Knoxville (43), Thora Birch (32), Liza Minnelli (68), Neil Sedaka (75), William H. Macy (64), Michael Caine (81), Quincy Jones (81), Billy Crystal (66), Eva Longoria (39), and Will.I.Am (39).

2013 League Table

[confidential]

Next week peeps!

16th March 2014 | Categories: 2014 | Leave A Comment »

Dead Pool 9th March 2014

Not a good week to be a French director it seems, but nobody guessed their demises, so no harm done. I don’t know about you, but I’ve noticed quite a few Star Trek actors and astronauts passing away recently, then I thought about it and realised that a lot of these people are ‘really’ old now. How did that happen?? Perhaps next year a list of spacemen is in order, actors and actual real ones!

Look Who You Could Have Had:

• Alain Resnais, 91, French film director (Night and Fog, Hiroshima mon amour).
• Stanley Rubin, 96, American film and television producer (Revenge, Bracken’s World, The Ghost & Mrs. Muir).
• Curtis McClarin, 44, American actor (The Happening, Law & Order), brain aneurysm.
• William R. Pogue, 84, American astronaut (Skylab) and Air Force pilot (Thunderbirds).
• Jean-Louis Bertucelli, 71, French film director (Ramparts of Clay, Docteur Françoise Gailland).
• Sheila MacRae, 93, English-born American actress (The Honeymooners).
• James Ellis, 82, Northern Irish actor (Z-Cars), stroke.
• Wendy Hughes, 61, Australian actress, cancer.

In Other News

Former British tennis number one Elena Baltacha has been diagnosed with cancer of the liver. Baltacha, 30, who retired last year, won 11 singles titles, made the third round of Wimbledon in 2002 and was part of Great Britain’s Fed Cup team for 11 years. At the age of 19, Baltacha was diagnosed with primary sclerosing cholangitis, a chronic liver condition which compromises the immune system. Let’s wish her well, but also keep an eye on her progress.

Actor Timothy West has told how his wife, Fawlty Towers star Prunella Scales, has been suffering from “a sort of mild Alzheimer’s”. The actress, now 81, is best known for her role as Basil Fawlty’s wife Sybil in the comedy Fawlty Towers. Scales says that she was determined not to let the condition keep her from the stage. “I always say I want to die on the eighth curtain call,” she says. “Eight will mean the show’s been rather a success. I just hope I’m somewhere near the middle and have been reasonably good in the part.” Can’t keep a good woman down they say!

Pope Francis inadvertently demonstrated his own fallibility during an address in St Peter’s Square when he mistakenly said the Italian word for “fuck”. The 77-year-old Jesuit Pope corrected himself almost immediately after making the gaffe during the audience at the Vatican on Sunday, but it was posted by Italians on YouTube and other social media and has since spread round the world.

This is the bizarre moment world-famous physicist Stephen Hawking joined fancy-dress revellers on a stag do. Chris Hallam, 29, and ten friends had gone out all dressed as Bananaman for a night on the town in Cambridge. The group turned a corner and bumped into Stephen Hawking getting out of his car. And they were stunned when the Brief History of Time author agreed to pose with them for a souvenir photo.

Lastly, I have to share this little story from The Telegraph last week. They’re implying that people aged between 55 and 65 that binge-drink at the weekend are twice as likely to die within 20 years than moderate drinkers. Well, no shit Sherlock! If I even reach 85 I’ll be quite happy, hopefully I’ll be drinking like a teenager too!  You also may have seen that being angry will increase your risk of dying early as well. Apparently being an angry cunt increases your chance of a heart attack by fivefold. Good I say, who needs a misery guts. Fuck giving them statins, let Darwinism make the world a nicer place.  If you are wondering if you are about to die, why not take the test! Luckily I live a quiet peaceful life in which I rarely talk to anyone and eat well and don’t smoke, so I’ll be here for a long time to annoy you with the Dead Pool. Luckily they don’t ask about how much you drink…

On This Day

• 1796 – Napoléon Bonaparte marries his first wife, Joséphine de Beauharnais.
• 1916 – Mexican Revolution: Pancho Villa leads nearly 500 Mexican raiders in an attack against the border town of Columbus, New Mexico.
• 1959 – The Barbie doll makes its debut at the American International Toy Fair in New York.
• 1961 – Sputnik 9 successfully launches, carrying a human dummy nicknamed Ivan Ivanovich, and demonstrating that Soviet Union was ready to begin human spaceflight.
• 2011 – Space Shuttle Discovery makes its final landing after 39 flights.

Deaths

• 1996 – George Burns, American actor and singer (b. 1896).
• 1997 – The Notorious B.I.G., American rapper (Junior M.A.F.I.A.) (b. 1972).

Horrible Ways to Die #4 – Hanged, Drawn & Quartered by Dexychik

High treason, meaning to plot against the crown, only stopped being a capital, offence in 1998. And from the mid-14th century until 1817, the punishment for most men who committed high treason was to be hanged, drawn and quartered. If you were very noble, you might get your sentence commuted to a straightforward beheading.

Everyone who’s seen Braveheart has a vague idea of what being hanged, drawn and quartered (or HDQ’d, for brevity) means. The man would be hanged until nearly unconscious, then have his innards removed, and then be chopped into four pieces, which were sent to be displayed around the kingdom as a deterrent. People came in their droves to watch this happen: it was considered a legitimate family entertainment. Imagine that nowadays: “What’s happening Saturday?” “Oh, X Factor’s back on, but someone’s being killed on Channel Xecution!”

So, what does it really mean to be HDQ’d? The captive was usually taken to their execution site on a hurdle, meaning pulled along behind a horse, tied to some wood. This would chafe…

The first thing to know about old style execution is that hanging in ye olden times was not the ‘long drop’. That came much later, when a clever man worked out how long a drop was necessary to break a criminal’s neck and reduce suffering. When talking about HDQ’ing, the hanging element meant being strung up by the neck and being choked. This could take bloody hours, and in straightforward executions, the family were allowed to pull the convict’s legs to end his or her suffering. This wouldn’t happen in a HDQ, consciousness was considered necessary.

The drawing wouldn’t be terribly pleasant to watch, or smell. The abdomen was opened up, and the bowel pulled out for all to see. There is a report that, in 1660, General Thomas Harrison smacked his executioner on the head after being disembowelled. That’s some spirit, and proof that being disembowelled isn’t necessarily painful enough to render a man unconscious or incapable. The guts were usually burned in front of the man’s eyes.

The quartering wouldn’t be fun to watch, but the convict was beheaded first, then hacked up. Back in ye olden days, this sort of posthumous disfigurement was considered a Bad Thing, as the body was needed whole for the afterlife. This is one of the reasons corpses of criminals were the only ones used for anatomy lessons, and why being HDQ’d stopped – the bodies were too mutilated to use in surgical lectures.

The moral here is, don’t plot against the monarch, if a horrible punishment is on the statute books. Thankfully, it’s now punishable by life imprisonment, so plot at will.

Next time: syphilis (pre-modern-therapy) OR boiled to death. You choose!

Last Week’s Birthdays

Tom Wolfe (84), John Irving (72), Jon Bon Jovi (52), Daniel Craig (46), Chris Martin (37), Jennifer Warnes (67), Miranda Richardson (56), Jessica Biel (32), Bobby Womack (70), Shakin’ Stevens (66), Chris Rea (63), Patsy Kensit (46), Dean Stockwell (78), Eddy Grant (66), Penn Jillette (59), Craig & Charlie Reed of The Proclaimers (52), Eva Mendes (39), David Gilmour (68), Rob Reiner (67), Kiki Dee (67), Tom Arnold (55), Bryan Cranston (58), Rachel Weisz (43), TJ Thyne (39), Micky Dolenz (69), Gary Numan (56) and Tom Chaplin (35).

2013 League Table

[confidential]

Next week peeps!

9th March 2014 | Categories: 2014 | Leave A Comment »

Dead Pool 2nd March 2014

Wonder of wonders! We have a point scorer ladies and gentlemen! Lee correctly predicted the death of Alice Herz-Sommer, but not only this, he listed her as his Woman, thus garnering himself a lovely 140 points, propelling himself unto the giddy heights of first place on the leader board! Well done that man!  Also I have to mention Harold Ramis. It’s without doubt that the man was a genius of comedy and it’s not too much to say that a small part of everyones past died with him. Imagine a world without Ghostbusters or Groundhog Day, its not even worth contemplating!

Look Who You Could Have Had:

• Alice Herz-Sommer, 110, Czech-British supercentenarian, world’s oldest Holocaust survivor, subject of The Lady in Number 6.
• Mike Parker, 84, British-born American typographer and software executive, helped popularise use of Helvetica.
• Harold Ramis, 69, American writer, director and actor (Groundhog Day, Vacation, Ghostbusters), vasculitis.
• Aaron Allston, 53, American game designer (Dungeons & Dragons) and sci-fi author (X-Wing), heart failure.

In Other News

Nearly two months after Michael Schumacher suffered a serious head injury in a skiing accident, neurologists say the seven-time Formula One champion seems unlikely to make a full recovery.  The 45-year-old fell while skiing in France and hit the right side of his head on a rock, cracking his helmet. Doctors operated to remove blood clots from his brain but some were left because they were too deeply embedded. Due to the length of time he’s been in a coma he’s very likely to awaken as a vegetable!

The Oscar-winning actress Dame Judi Dench has spoken of how her failing eyesight has left her unable to read scripts and struggling to watch films. Dench suffers from macular degeneration, an age-related condition that leads to a gradual loss of vision, which her mother also had. But the actress, 79, who has notched up 95 award nominations during her illustrious career, balked at suggestions her career would slow down because of failing health.

If you think you’re having a bad day, think about this poor sperm whale! The whale died when it became stranded on the Kent coast near Seasalter more than a week ago. Its decomposing body was left there for five days until it was removed and loaded on to the back of a lorry to be taken to a landfill site. The huge carcass was covered by a tarpaulin and strapped onto the rear of a flat-bed truck with part of it overhanging the back. But the sight and smell of it travelling along the A2 towards Canterbury on a weekday afternoon left some drivers choking at the wheel.   A witness said: “There was a Land Rover in front and behind, flashing orange lights and this massive whale with its head and tail chopped off. There was blood and guts dropping off the back and everything. The smell was unbelievable! I’ve worked near an abattoir and that smelled bad, but this was something else.”   They should count their lucky stars that the whale didn’t pop open like the one pictured on the left! Apparently it took 50 Taiwanese workers 13 hours to clean up after this whale exploded in 2004 whilst being transported.

But as bad days go, maybe this bloke had a worse one… Poor old Walter Williams, an inhabitant of Mississippi was found literally ‘alive and kicking’ in a body bag at a funeral home after being declared dead. Workers at Porter and Sons Funeral Home were preparing to embalm Walter when he moved. I bet there were a few loose sphincters abound when the poor old sod managed to stir.

On This Day

• 1657 – Great Fire of Meireki: A fire in Edo (now Tokyo), Japan, caused more than 100,000 deaths; it lasted three days.
• 1797 – The Bank of England issues the first one-pound and two-pound banknotes.
• 1882 – Queen Victoria narrowly escapes an assassination attempt by Roderick McLean in Windsor.
• 1933 – The film King Kong opens at New York’s Radio City Music Hall.
• 1949 – Captain James Gallagher lands his B-50 Superfortress Lucky Lady II in Fort Worth, Texas after completing the first non-stop around-the-world airplane flight in 94 hours and one minute.
• 1969 – In Toulouse, France, the first test flight of the Anglo-French Concorde is conducted.
• 1983 – Compact Discs and players are released for the first time in the United States and other markets. They had previously been available only in Japan.

Deaths

• 1791 – John Wesley, English cleric and theologian (b. 1703)
• 1930 – D. H. Lawrence, English author, poet, and playwright (b. 1885)
• 1939 – Howard Carter, English archaeologist (b. 1874)
• 1982 – Philip K. Dick, American author (b. 1928)
• 1999 – Dusty Springfield, English singer (The Lana Sisters and The Springfields) (b. 1939)

Last Week’s Birthdays

Peter Fonda (74), Howard Jones (59), Kelly MacDonald (38), Emily Blunt (31), Dakota Fanning (20), Abe Vigoda (93), Edward James Olmos (67), George Thorogood (64), Billy Zane (48), Tea Leoni (48), Sean Astin (43), Fats Domino (86), Michael Bolton (61), Joanne Woodward (84), Adam Baldwin (52), Mercedes Ruehl (66), John Turturro (57), Harry Belafonte (87), Robert Conrad (79), Roger Daltrey (70), Ron Howard (60), Javier Bardem (45) and Justin Bieber (20).

2013 League Table

[confidential]

Next week peeps!

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

Dead Pool 23rd February 2014

The weeks fly by don’t they! Here we are again, mulling over celebrity deaths only to find that nobody has scored any points this week. It almost feels like a Star Wars themed week with the deaths of two bit-part actors, but it also highlights that the main cast are getting on and perhaps it’s time to add their names to your prospective lists for next year! It’s hard to believe that Han Solo is 71 and young Luke Skywalker is 62, but Leia, his twin sister is only 57, go figure…

Look Who You Could Have Had:

• Cliff Bole, 76, American television director (MacGyver, The Six Million Dollar Man, Star Trek: The Next Generation).
• Jamie Coots, 41, American snake-handling pastor, snakebite.
• Christopher Malcolm, 67, Scottish actor (The Empire Strikes Back, Highlander, The Rocky Horror Show).
• Jimmy Murakami, 80, American animator and film director (When the Wind Blows).
• Nelson Frazier, Jr., 43, American professional wrestler (World Wrestling Federation/Entertainment 1993–2008), heart attack.
• Malcolm Tierney, 75, British actor (Doctor Who, Star Wars, Braveheart).
• Maria Franziska von Trapp, 99, Austrian-born American singer, portrayed in The Sound of Music.
• Dale Gardner, 65, American astronaut (STS-8, STS-51-A), brain aneurysm.
• Valeri Kubasov, 79, Russian cosmonaut (Soyuz 6, Apollo-Soyuz Test Project/Soyuz 19, Soyuz 36).

In Other News

The former French president, Jacques Chirac, who has been in poor health for several years, was taken to hospital on Monday night. An ambulance with an escort of police motorcycles carried the 81-year-old from his home to the American Hospital of Paris in the suburb of Neuilly. He was reportedly suffering from “an acute episode of gout”, which no doubt necessitated a police escort, after all, a sore big toe is of huge national concern. Following a stroke in 2005 he’s also had surgery to remove kidney stones in December.

Rock veteran David Crosby is postponing the remainder of his solo tour after undergoing heart surgery. The Crosby, Stills and Nash star was due to perform in San Francisco and Los Angeles later this month but he has revealed that he underwent a cardiac catheterisation and angiogram on 14th February. Crosby is “expected to have a full recovery. He did not have a heart attack, though it is certain that had he chosen to ignore his doctor’s urgent recommendation, it would have led to one… the left anterior coronary artery was found to be 90% blocked, and two stents have been placed to provide blood flow to his heart muscle.”

The BBC has announced that David Dimbleby is to host his final general election programme next year. It will be the ninth edition fronted by the 75-year-old, who first hosted the results programme in 1979 when Margaret Thatcher became prime minister. Is this an admission by Dimbleby that he’s getting old and ready to retire? Will he also give up on Question Time? Is he about to die?

Three-time golf Major winner, Padraig Harrington, has revealed that he has undergone treatment for skin cancer. Harrington, whose father Patrick died from cancer, underwent surgery for “sun spots” and spoke out in a bid to raise awareness. Let’s keep an eye on his game shall we…

Plans for a lavish $1m celebration of Zimbabwean president Robert Mugabe’s 90th birthday have been condemned as the country lurches towards another financial crisis. The costly celebration, criticised as cultism and hero worship, comes at a time of heavy job losses and slowing economic growth. Mugabe, who continues to defy the march of time and constant health speculation, also travelled to Singapore this week for cataract surgery on his left eye. Looks like the old cunt is here to stay.

On This Day

• 532 – Byzantine Emperor Justinian I orders the building of a new Orthodox Christian basilica in Constantinople – the Hagia Sophia.
• 1455 – Traditional date for the publication of the Gutenberg Bible, the first Western book printed with movable type.
• 1739 – Richard Palmer is identified at York Castle, by his former schoolteacher, as the outlaw Dick Turpin.
• 1886 – Charles Martin Hall produced the first samples of man-made aluminum, after several years of intensive work. He was assisted in this project by his older sister Julia Brainerd Hall.
• 1927 – German theoretical physicist Werner Heisenberg writes a letter to fellow physicist Wolfgang Pauli, in which he describes his uncertainty principle for the first time.
• 1941 – Plutonium is first produced and isolated by Dr. Glenn T. Seaborg.
• 1947 – The International Organization for Standardization (ISO) is founded.

Deaths

• 1821 – John Keats, English poet (b. 1795)
• 1848 – John Quincy Adams, 6th President of the United States (b. 1767)
• 1931 – Nellie Melba, Australian soprano (b. 1861)
• 1934 – Edward Elgar, English composer (b. 1857)
• 1965 – Stan Laurel, English actor and director (b. 1890)
• 1976 – L. S. Lowry, English painter (b. 1887)
• 1995 – James Herriot, English surgeon and author (b. 1916)
• 2000 – Stanley Matthews, English footballer (b. 1915)

Male, Poor, Lonely & Fat? by KoA

In a blow to my self-confidence, scientists have found that the loneliest are nearly twice as likely to die during their six-year study than the least lonely.

Loneliness can be twice as unhealthy as obesity, according to researchers who found that feelings of isolation can have a devastating impact on people. The scientists tracked more than 2,000 people aged 50 and over and found that the loneliest were nearly twice as likely to die.

Compared with the average person in the study, those who reported being lonely had a 14% greater risk of dying. The figure means that loneliness has around twice the impact on an early death as obesity. Poverty increased the risk of an early death by 19%.

Previous studies have linked loneliness to a range of health problems, from high blood pressure and a weakened immune system to a greater risk of depression, heart attack and strokes.

But it’s not all doom and gloom, The Samaritans say that the male suicide rate in the UK was 3½ times that of women in 2012, the highest ratio between the sexes in more than 30 years. Men between the 40-44 age bracket seem to be the best at killing themselves if you want to know.

There were 4,590 male suicides registered in 2012, compared with 1,391 female, equating to 18.2 per 100,000 men and 5.2 per 100,000 women, according to the Office for National Statistics.

So adding all of those statistics up means that I have a 238% chance of being dead and most likely I died by my own hand. I hate to break it to the ONS, but I’m still here…

Last Week’s Birthdays

LeVar Burton (57), Ice T (56), Hal Holbrook (89), Barry Humphries (80), Brenda Fricker (69), Rene Russo (60), Lou Diamond Phillips (52), Dominic Purcell (44), Denise Richards (43), Joseph Gordon-Levitt (33), George Kennedy (89), Milos Forman (82), Yoko Ono (81), Cybill Shepherd (64), Randy Crawford (62), John Travolta (60), Matt Dillon (50), Dr Dre (49), Molly Ringwald (46), Smokey Robinson (74), Tony Iommi (66), Jeff Daniels (59), Seal (51), Benicio Del Toro (47),  Sidney Poitier (87), Brenda Blethyn (68), Anthony Stewart Head (60), Cindy Crawford (48), Rihanna (26), Peter McEnery (74), Tyne Daly (68), Anthony Daniels (68), Alan Rickman (68), Kelsey Grammer (59), William Baldwin (51), Jennifer Love Hewitt (35), Charlotte Church (28), Ellen Page (27), Jonathan Demme (70), Julie Walters (64), Kyle MacLachlan (55), Jeri Ryan (46), Thomas Jane (45), Drew Barrymore (39) and finally, James Blunt (37).

2013 League Table

[confidential]

Next week peeps!

23rd February 2014 | Categories: 2014 | Leave A Comment »

Dead Pool 16th February 2014

Welcome one and all to a special Valentine’s edition of the Dead Pool!  Undoubtedly one of the busiest weeks we’ve had in a while, the league table has changed somewhat with three scoring famous faces biting the bullet during the last week. So 68 points go to Jim for guessing Stuart Hall, not the paedo Hall, the other one, and no complaining from the rest of you who had the paedo Hall on your list, I know the difference! Julie totals 65 points for Shirley Temple, astounding that nobody else had her, maybe you all thought she was dead already. Last but not least, Trish scored 59 points for the footballer, Sir Tom Finney. Well done you lot.

Now onto the frivolity…

Look Who You Could Have Had:

• Christopher Barry, 88, British television director (Doctor Who).
• Marius, 1, Danish giraffe, shot.
• Gabriel Axel, 95, Danish film director (Babette’s Feast) and actor.
• Shirley Temple, 85, American actress and diplomat, recipient of the Academy Juvenile Award (1935), Ambassador to Ghana (1974–1976) and Czechoslovakia (1989–1992), natural causes.
• Stuart Hall, 82, Jamaican-born British cultural theorist.
• Els Borst, 81, Dutch politician, Deputy Prime Minister (1998–2002), suspected homicide.
• Sid Caesar, 91, American Emmy Award-winning comedian and actor (Your Show of Shows, Grease, It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World).
• Ralph Waite, 85, American actor (The Waltons, Roots, Cliffhanger).
• Ken Jones, 83, British actor (Porridge, The Squirrels), bowel cancer.
• John Henson, 48, American puppeteer (Sweetums), heart attack.
• Sir Tom Finney, 91, English footballer (Preston North End).

In Other News

In a story befitting of our Valentine’s edition, the dead bodies of a woman of 94 and a man of 55 have been found locked in an embrace in the flat they shared in the south-west French city of Bordeaux. Emergency services entered the flat after being alerted by a caretaker, whose suspicions were aroused by the smell on the stairs. They had lived together for five years or more, since the woman took the man in from a life on the streets. When a fall two years ago largely confined her to the flat, he stayed on. Forensics experts believe the man, Didier Delavigne, died first and the woman, Elisabeth Devidas, died shortly afterwards. She was found on Monday afternoon with her arm wrapped around her companion in their bed in the flat, close to Bordeaux railway station. Awwww…

The veteran leftwinger and former Labour cabinet minister Tony Benn was admitted to hospital on Saturday. Benn, 88, who suffered a stroke in 2012, is understood to be seriously ill. A family spokesman said: “Tony was taken to hospital on Saturday evening after feeling unwell. He is currently receiving treatment.” Let’s hope he gets better, we need more men like him in this country otherwise we’ll end up being Cameron’s anal bitches.

Formula 1 legend Michael Schumacher, who is still lying in a semi-coma in a French hospital, has contracted a lung infection. The effects on the fragile state of health of the 45-year-old are unknown, but by the sound of it, they don’t sound promising. With little information being given to media, the hospital has been left to fend off rumours. Last Thursday, it had to deny speculation flaring on social networks that Schumacher had died. Let’s see how this plays out.

Lastly, I suppose we should apologise to the Hairy Cornflake, Dave Lee Travis and Ken Barlow actor, William Roache. Both have been found innocent of fucking little children and thus are unlikely to die horrible deaths at the hands of fellow inmates. This must give Rolf Harris some comfort in his upcoming trial.  I’ll not spark a debate on the justification of publishing their names before they were given a fair trial, but innocent is innocent, even though they will be carrying the stink of the accusation until the end of time.  We’ve also heard they are starting a new business together, so if you feel comfortable allowing these two men babysit your kids, please feel free to use their services. www.DLTKB-babysittingservices.com

On This Day

• 1874 – Silver Dollar becomes legal US tender.
• 1923 – Howard Carter unseals the burial chamber of Pharaoh Tutankhamun.
• 1957 – The “Toddlers’ Truce“, a controversial television close down between 6.00 pm and 7.00 pm is abolished in the United Kingdom.
• 1959 – Fidel Castro becomes Premier of Cuba after dictator Fulgencio Batista was overthrown on January 1.
• 1968 – In Haleyville, Alabama, the first 9-1-1 emergency telephone system goes into service.
• 1978 – The first computer bulletin board system is created (CBBS in Chicago, Illinois).
• 2006 – The last Mobile Army Surgical Hospital (MASH) is decommissioned by the United States Army.

Deaths

• 1924 – John William Kendrick, American railroad executive (b. 1853)
• 1924 – Wilhelm Schmidt, German pioneer of superheated steam for use in locomotives (b. 1858)
• 1992 – Angela Carter, English author and journalist (b. 1940)
• 2001 – Howard W. Koch, American director and producer (b. 1916)

The Dark Origins of Valentine’s Day by KoA

Valentine’s Day is a time to celebrate romance and love, unless you observe SAD, Single Awareness Day. But the origins of this festival of kissy-face fealty and cupids are actually dark, bloody and a bit muddled.

Although nobody knows for sure the exact origin, one good place to start is Rome, where men hit on women by, well, hitting them.  Usually the wild and crazy Romans celebrated the feast of Lupercalia from February 13th to 15th by sacrificing a goat and a dog, then whipped women with the hides of the animals they had just slain. Obviously everyone was drunk and naked and the women lined up to be flogged by the bloody skins as they believed this would make them fertile.  The fete included a matchmaking lottery in which young men drew the names of the women from a jar. The lucky pair would then be coupled for the duration of the festival. Sounds bloody amazing doesn’t it, much better than chocolate and roses.

The ancient Romans may also be responsible for the name of our modern day marketing success. Emperor Claudius II  executed two men called Valentine, both of February 14th but on different years. Their apparent martyrdom was honoured by the Christians, hence St. Valentine.  One of them, a holy priest, defied Claudius by performing banned marriages due to the over attachment of his soldiers to their wives. He was found out and ordered to be put to death. Condemned, he was beaten with clubs and beheaded, as you do, but legend has it he left a letter for the jailers daughter, who became his ‘friend’ and signed it, ‘from your Valentine’.

However, all this bloody goodness was put to an end by the Christians, who put everyones clothes back on and stopped everyone drinking and having amazing drunken orgies.  As the years went on, Chaucer and Shakespeare managed to romanticise the day through their works and, lo and behold, by the 19th century the Hallmark company capitalised upon peoples idiocy by mass producing sick-inducing cards for the less imaginative amongst us.

Hands up who wants to return to the Roman version!!

Last Week’s Birthdays

Joe Pesci (71), Mia Farrow (69), Robert Wagner (84), Laura Dern (47), Elizabeth Banks (40), Chloe Grace Moretz (17), Burt Reynolds (78), Sheryl Crow (52), Jennifer Aniston (45), Franco Ziffirelli (91), Michael Ironside (64), Arsenio Hall (58), Josh Brolin (46), Sarah Lancaster (34), Christina Ricci (34), Kim Novak (81), George Segal (80), Peter Tork (72), Stockard Channing (70), Jerry Springer (70), Peter Gabriel (64), Mena Suvari (35), Teller (66), Meg Tilly (54), Jane Seymour (63), Matt Groenig (60) and Ali Campbell (55).

2013 League Table

[confidential]

Next week peeps!

16th February 2014 | Categories: 2014 | 1 Comment »

Dead Pool 9th February 2014

I think it goes without saying that this weeks big news is the unexpected death of Philip Seymour Hoffman from what appears to be a heroin overdose, I think the hypodermic needle poking out of his arm may have given that away… A sad loss to his family and the thespian community, plus a bit of an embuggerance for the producers of the current film he was acting in, The Hunger Games: Mokingjay – Part 2, where he still had one major scene to complete. But thanks to todays CGI they will be able to finish the film. Much to everyones horror, the film will be released in 2015.

Look Who You Could Have Had:

• Luis Aragonés, 75, Spanish football player and manager
• Philip Seymour Hoffman, 46, American actor (Capote, The Master, Doubt) and producer, winner of Academy Award for Best Actor (2005), suspected heroin overdose.
• Richard Bull, 89, American actor (Little House on the Prairie), natural causes.
• Gloria Leonard, 73, American pornographic actress and magazine publisher (High Society), complications from a stroke.
• Samantha Juste, 69, British television personality (Top of the Pops), stroke.
• Hazel Sampson, 103, American linguist, last native speaker of the Klallam language.

In Other News

Star Trek star Leonard Nimoy aka Spock, has revealed that he is suffering from a potentially fatal lung disease. The revelation comes after the 82-year-old was seen in a wheelchair in New York last month. In a post on Twitter he said: ‘I quit smoking 30 years ago. Not soon enough. I have COPD. Grandpa says, quit now!! LLAP (Long Live and Prosper)’. As you all know, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, which makes it increasingly difficult to breathe is a progressive condition, which does not bode well for Nimoy.

A 102-year-old Frenchman, Robert Marchand, broke his own world record in the over-100s category by riding a bicycle 16.7 miles in one hour.  Mr Marchand improved on the record breaking distance he achieved two years ago, by more than 1.5 miles. The cyclist is a retired firefighter and also holds the record for someone over the age of 100 riding 62 miles, which he did in four hours, 17 minutes and 27 seconds in 2012. Fair play to the old codger, I don’t think I could manage a mile in a year! Best keep an eye on him though, prime contender for a heart attack.

The president of the UAE is in a “stable and reassuring” condition after surgery following a stroke late last month. Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed Al Nahyan had “passed through a difficult crisis” but has “overcome it”. The 66-year-old ruler of Abu Dhabi suffered the stroke on the 24th January. He’s not made a public appearance since then.

Long-time US television host Jay Leno has taped his final episode of The Tonight Show, and we all know what happens to men when they retire… Leno, 63, appeared emotional as he thanked viewers for their loyalty after his 22 years as host. He was joined by high-profile guests including Billy Crystal, Oprah Winfrey and Garth Brooks, who all looked like they were about to croak themselves. The show is being taken over by the young Jimmy Fallon, not that anybody cares.

On This Day

• 1555 – Bishop of Gloucester John Hooper is burned at the stake.
• 1959 – The R-7 Semyorka, the first intercontinental ballistic missile, becomes operational at Plesetsk, USSR.
• 1964 – The Beatles make their first appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show, performing before a “record-busting” audience of 73 million viewers.
• 1965 – Vietnam War: The first United States combat troops are sent to South Vietnam.
• 1969 – First test flight of the Boeing 747.

Deaths

• 1981 – Bill Haley, American singer-songwriter and guitarist (Bill Haley & His Comets) (b. 1925)
• 1984 – Yuri Andropov, Soviet politician (b. 1914)
• 1999 – Bryan Mosley, English actor (b. 1931)
• 2002 – Princess Margaret, Countess of Snowdon (b. 1930)
• 2005 – Robert Kearns, American engineer, invented the windscreen wiper (b. 1927)
• 2010 – Walter Frederick Morrison, American toymaker, invented the Frisbee (b. 1920)

Horrible Ways To Die #2 – Ebola by Sophie

Ebola, I’m not gonna lie, scares the bejeesus out of me. It is almost exclusive to central Africa, and is contracted from handling the bodies of primates, and possibly also bat shit, in places of poor sanitation. It can be airborne, but that hasn’t been demonstrated in humans yet.

It is hideously contagious between humans, and infective. It doesn’t tend to spread around much, both because the areas affected are isolated, and because its contagious period coincides with the onset of horrible, awful symptoms. Let me illuminate you…

It starts, relatively innocently, like the flu with added hiccups. But then, the brain gets affected and you become agitated, get violent headaches and sometimes seizures. You may fall into a coma ,if you’re lucky.

But this is nothing compared to what’s going on with your skin. Ebola is a hemorrhagic disease. This means that your blood loses its ability to clot, and everything bleeds. Your nose, your gums, your tongue, your oesophagus and stomach, your eyes, any open wounds, even if they’re pinpricks, even your vagina. The skin develops a spotty rash, with bruises and haematomas (blood filled lumps) all over the place. But you don’t bleed to death, no.

Instead, you develop multiple organ failure, due to tiny blood clots all over your system, and from tissue death. There’s no treatment, although attempts at creating a vaccine are in progress. Survival rates are understandably low (around 30%) but some people make a complete recovery.

Wouldn’t want to try my luck though…

NEXT TIME: Back to the history books with Hung, Drawn and Quartered.

What Kind of Meat is Human? by KoA

If beef is red and chicken is white, what kind of meat do we humans carry about on our bones? Of course you want to know.

If you were to base your answer on taste alone, you might be tempted to conclude that human flesh most closely resembles that of pork. For example, it’s been said that cannibals on the Marquesas Islands of Columbia referred to human meat as “long pig,” on account of its likeness to pork and the infamous German cannibal Armin Meiwes once described human flesh as tasting like pork, only “a little bit more bitter, stronger. It tastes quite good.

But taste isn’t everything. Another way of approaching this question might be to ask what human meat looks like. For instance, is human meat red or white?

New York Times reporter William Buehler Seabrook, in his 1931 book Jungle Ways, describes a hunk of raw human flesh, as closely resembling beef. Arguably more surprising, however, is that Seabrook later roasted the meat and ate it himself, resulting in one of the most detailed culinary descriptions of human flesh ever penned. When cooked, he wrote, the meat turned greyish in a manner not unlike lamb, and while it smelled like cooked beef, the taste, contrary to popular opinion, was not like pork, but “good, fully developed veal, not young, but not yet beef.” It was a similarity he described colourfully and repeatedly:

“It was so nearly like good, fully developed veal that I think no person with a palate of ordinary, normal sensitiveness could distinguish it from veal. It was mild, good meat with no other sharply defined or highly characteristic taste such as for instance, goat, high game, and pork have. The steak was slightly tougher than prime veal, a little stringy, but not too tough or stringy to be agreeably edible. The roast, from which I cut and ate a central slice, was tender, and in colour, texture, smell as well as taste, strengthened my certainty that of all the meats we habitually know, veal is the one meat to which this meat is accurately comparable.”

So, the next time you’re in a plane crash and having to make that decision of noshing down on the tasty looking lass in that 1st class window seat, now you know what to expect.

Last Week’s Birthdays

Shakira (37), Nick Nolte (73), Isla Fisher (38), Ashton Kutcher (36), Christie Brinkley (60), Chris Rock (49), Morgan Fairchild (64), Garth Brooks (52), James Spader (54), Barbara Hershey (66), Axl Rose (52), Rebel Wilson (28), Alice Cooper (66), Bobby Brown (45), Jennifer Jason Leigh (52), Michael Sheen (45), Natalie Imbruglia (39), Seth Green (40), John Grisham (59), Zsa Zsa Gabor (97), Cristiano Ronaldo (29), Charlotte Rampling (68) and Rip Torn (83).

2013 League Table

[confidential]

I’d like to finish with an awesome tweet from the horror writer Stephen King.

Next week peeps!

9th February 2014 | Categories: 2014 | Leave A Comment »