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Dead Pool 30th August 2020

This weeks big news is without doubt the untimely passing of Chadwick Boseman; who’s illness was alluded to in one of our reports back in April. Just goes to show that those who pay attention and read the articles have a better chance of making a winning list.

Look Who You Could Have Had:

Lori Nelson, 87, American actress (Revenge of the Creature, How to Marry a Millionaire, I Died a Thousand Times).
Gerald Carr, 88, American astronaut (Skylab 4) and aeronautical engineer.
Joe Ruby, 87, American animator and television producer (Scooby-Doo, Dynomutt, Dog Wonder, Thundarr the Barbarian), co-founder of Ruby-Spears.
Chadwick Boseman, 43, American actor (Black Panther, 42, Marshall), colon cancer.

In Other News

Girls Aloud singer Sarah Harding has been diagnosed with breast cancer, which she says has spread to other parts of her body. Writing on Twitter, the 38-year-old told fans she was diagnosed with the disease earlier this year. Harding explained she then received the “devastating news” this month that the cancer had spread. “I’m currently undergoing weekly chemotherapy sessions and I am fighting as hard as I possibly can,” she said. She thanked NHS staff, her family and friends for support, adding that she was “trying to keep positive”. Harding said she had decided to go public with her diagnosis after being seen in hospital last week. Her Girls Aloud bandmate Cheryl responded to the news by posting a superficial broken heart emoji on Twitter. Harding shot to fame in 2002 as a contestant on Popstars: The Rivals – an ITV talent show which aimed to find both a new girl band and boy band. She made it to the final and was voted into the group which became Girls Aloud, alongside Nicola Roberts, Nadine Coyle, Kimberley Walsh and Cheryl Tweedy. The group went on to have several UK hits, including Sound of the Underground, The Promise, Love Machine, Jump and Call The Shots. They split in 2013. Harding has since taken on several acting roles, including appearances in Run for Your Wife, and St. Trinian’s 2. In 2017, she won Celebrity Big Brother.

R Kelly has been attacked by another inmate in prison, his attorney has claimed. The singer was allegedly attacked on Wednesday (26th August) at Metropolitan Correctional Centre in Chicago, where he is awaiting trial after pleading not guilty to dozens of state and federal sex crime charges. Kelly’s attorney Steve Greenberg made the claims on Twitter as he demanded that the “musician” be released from jail ahead of his trial, which is scheduled to begin in New York in September. “We received conflicting reports as to the extent of Kelly’s injuries,” Greenberg wrote. “We have not been provided any information from the jail, nor has Mr Kelly called. We are hopeful that he was not seriously injured.” “The government cannot ensure his safety, and they cannot give him his day in court. We should not incarcerate people indefinitely because we cannot provide them with due process!” Kelly, 53, was originally due to face trial on 7th July, but his trial date was pushed back to the end of September due to the coronavirus pandemic. He is facing charges for multiple offences, including sex trafficking, child pornography and racketeering, in New York, Minnesota and Illinois. Earlier in August, three men were charged with threatening, intimidating or attempting to silence Kelly’s alleged victims, with one accused of setting fire to a vehicle outside the residence where an accuser was staying.

On This Day

1916 – Ernest Shackleton completes the rescue of all of his men stranded on Elephant Island in Antarctica.
1984 – STS-41-D: The Space Shuttle Discovery takes off on its maiden voyage.
2008 – In a bad day for the pilot, a Conviasa Boeing 737 crashes into Illiniza Volcano in Ecuador, killing everyone on board.

Deaths

1979 – Jean Seberg, American actress (b. 1938)
2003 – Charles Bronson, American actor and soldier (b. 1921)
2015 – Wes Craven, American director, producer, screenwriter, and actor (b. 1939)
2019 – Valerie Harper, American actor (b. 1939)

The ‘Horror Movie’ Island

There is an island off the coast that hardly anyone talks about. And you definitely wouldn’t want to go there. You’ll find it opposite Queenborough in Sheppey and its probably one of the most haunting spots anywhere, situated as it is just off the River Medway. It’s local name sounds like something out of Pirates of the Caribbean – it’s dubbed Deadman’s Island, a name it earned after recent investigations found it littered with human remains. More than 200 years ago, the island was used as a burial ground for convicts who died aboard prison ships, and rising sea levels have caused the lost bodies of the ‘prison hulk’ boats just off Sheppey to be uncovered.

Coastal erosion and lower tides mean that in 2020, wooden coffins, aged skulls and fragments of bones stick out from the six feet of mud that once blanketed the area. Usually the island is completely out of bounds to the public. But a Dead Pool roving reporter was among some of the only visitors who have been allowed to Deadman’s Island in recent times as all others have been banned due to its bird breeding and nesting site. Natural England owns the land which is a Site of Special Scientific Interest and is recognised to be of international importance under the Ramsar convention. Television crews have been drawn to this spine-tingling location to explore its hidden secrets, with the BBC’s Inside Out team unearthing some harrowing sites on the forgotten island. Director Sam Supple previously told the Sun: “It is like being on the set of a horror film. “It looks so surreal, it’s like an art department has designed it. There are open coffins and bones everywhere.” Presenter Natalie Graham added: “What I saw there will stay with me forever. “This is a really strange sight. I would imagine there can’t be anywhere on earth like this.” It’s not just visitors that are prohibited, no-one lives on the island and so it remains untouched by modern civilisation. This in turn has spurred ghostly folklore about it.

Locals have warned travellers of hounds with glaring-red eyes that ate the heads of buried bodies, a skin-crawling atmosphere and ‘an island solely occupied by the dead’. And ‘Coffin Bay’ greets anyone who enters its perimeter with, you guessed it, open coffins accompanied by scattered remains along its banks. Floating prisons were former warships which housed inmates, including young pick-pockets, awaiting the death penalty in Australia. If prisoners were not healthy enough for the journey they would be left in the underbelly of the ship until they died, possibly of cholera. They were then buried in unmarked graves on the island so the disease did not spread further, causing an epidemic. Many have wondered whether the bodies at Deadman’s will be re-buried, but experts have admitted this would be a difficult task. This is because the constantly changing seascape threatens the durability of the bones, washing them out to sea. Coincidentally, researchers also found more human remains of a similar nature in Chatham. These were from many French prisoners who were held during the Napoleonic wars – those who died were buried in nearby marshes. When the bones of these prisoners were revealed by erosion they were exhumed and reburied on St Mary’s Island. Later, when this land was needed for redevelopment they were moved to St George’s Church at Chatham Maritime.

Last Week’s Birthdays

Cameron Diaz (48), Michael Chiklis (57), Warren Buffett (90), Emily Hampshire (38), Carla Gugino (49), Rebecca De Mornay (61), Elliott Gould (82), William Friedkin (85), Jack Black (51), Brian Thompson (61), Billy Boyd (52), Shania Twain (55), David Soul (77), Aaron Paul (41), Peter Stormare (67), Paul Reubens (68), Barbara Bach (73), Peter Mensah (61), Reece Shearsmith (51), Chris Pine (40), Melissa McCarthy (50), Macaulay Culkin (40), Blake Lively (33), Alexander Skarsgård (44), Sean Connery (90), Rachel Bilson (39), Tim Burton (62), Joanne Whalley (59), Tom Skerritt (87), Gene Simmons (71), Billy Ray Cyrus (59), Claudia Schiffer (50), Jared Harris (59), Steve Guttenberg (62), Rupert Grint (32), Jennifer Lien (46), Dave Chappelle (47), and Stephen Fry (63).

30th August 2020 | Categories: Uncategorized | Leave A Comment »

Dead Pool 7th December 2013

I don’t know if any of you noticed, but some guy in South Africa died this week. Sadly, the great Nelson Mandela finally passed away, thus providing us with a grand total of 1315 points to share between 13 of us, which also means most of us now need to redraw next years lists. Half of you had him as a Cert so the leader board has changed dramatically. The game is far from over, with the top half of the table being very close, one of your big three dying could easily give us a new high point scorer.

2014 isn’t that far away now, I hope that you’re all busily working away on your new lists. I’ve had a handful submitted already, it certainly looks like a tough year as the lists so far are very inspired and well researched. This week I’m enclosing a copy of the 2013 lists so that you can familiarise yourselves with your old list, which might help you decide on 2014’s. Plus you will be able to see where you’ve scored, seeing that we have all scored some points now. Yay!

Look Who You Could Have Had:

Peter Graf, 75, German tennis coach and manager (Steffi Graf), cancer.
Colin Wilson, 82, English writer.
Nelson Mandela, 95, South African anti-apartheid activist and politician, President (1994−1999), lung infection.
Stan Tracey, 86, British jazz pianist.

In Other News

Brucie was again notably absent from the Strictly ballroom this week. Another unscheduled break from the series, for which we can only be thankful for. The previous week he could barely string a sentence together coherently, so I’ll stick my neck on the line and propose that Forsyth is on his way from this mortal coil shortly. He himself admits that he’s on borrowed time, but I’d rather hope that he decides to give up trying to be on our TV’s before he crumbles into dust in front of our eyes.

Since Paul Walker died suddenly last Sunday, I didn’t get a chance to mention him properly in last weeks’ newsletter. You may have seen the state of the Porsche that he was a passenger in, bit of a mess. But in a fantastic piece of medical practitioning, the coroner deduced from the post-mortem that he died of the impact from the car crash and the subsequent fire. Well, no shit Sherlock!

George Clooney and Russell Crowe have had a small falling out. One wonders if the star of Gladiator would be able to beat a one time Batman? It all began after Crowe called Clooney a “Frank Sinatra wannabe” and also insinuated that he was a sell-out for appearing in adverts. The falling out has yet to become epic in any shape or form, but you never know… To date, Crowe has just sent Clooney a CD of him reciting some poetry, I know that would fuck me off immensely, so here’s hoping that one will kill the other very soon.

On This Day

1660 – A woman (either Margaret Hughes or Anne Marshall) appears on an English public stage for the first time, in the role of Desdemona in a production of Shakespeare’s play Othello.
1813 – Premier of Beethoven’s Seventh Symphony.
1980 – John Lennon is murdered by a mentally unstable fan in front of The Dakota in New York City.
1991 – The leaders of Russia, Belarus and Ukraine sign an agreement dissolving the Soviet Union and establishing the Commonwealth of Independent States.
2010 – With the second launch of the SpaceX Falcon 9 and the first launch of the SpaceX Dragon, SpaceX becomes the first private company to successfully launch, orbit and recover a spacecraft.

Deaths

1980 – John Lennon, English singer-songwriter, guitarist, and activist (The Beatles, Plastic Ono Band, The Quarrymen, and The Dirty Mac) (b. 1940)
1983 – Slim Pickens, American actor and rodeo performer (b. 1919)

Thank Fuck He’s Dead by KoA

This week we have Peter Niers (or Niersch).

Niers was a German bandit, and reputed serial killer who was executed 16 September 1581 in Neumarkt in der Oberpfalz, some 40 km distant from Nuremberg. So if you think serial killing is a new phenomena, think again…

Based on confessions extracted from him and his accomplices under torture, he was convicted of 544 murders, including 24 foetuses cut out of 24 pregnant women. I’d be rather surprised if he cut them out of 25 women, but there you go, at least they were relatively good at maths back then…

Allegedly, the foetal remains were used in magical rituals (Niers was believed to be an extremely powerful black magician, with many supernatural abilities) and for acts of cannibalism, which is generally the case when you have a nut job of this level active in your community.

His modus operandi was to join a band of robbers or pose as a shepherd to choose his victims. Both gave him ample scope to travel and thus his tally of murders increased exponentially.

In 1577 he was arrested and tortured; he revealed at the time that he had killed 75 people, but he managed to escape. In ballads commemorating his achievements it is noted that the foetuses (that were kept in a bag) were used to make him invisible so that his reign of death could continue. There were also rumours that he’d made a deal with the Devil to ensure a steady income of gold. Hardly a Tenacious D moment.

Niers capture was only down to laziness on his part. He fancied a bath and forgot to take his bag of magical foetus parts with him, thus ensuring that the locals managed to see and capture him, then putting him on trial and finding him guilty and sentenced to execution.

The detailed manner of the final torture and execution of Peter Niers was as follows:

On the first day, strips of flesh were torn from his body, then heated oil was poured into his wounds.

On the second day, his feet were smeared with heated oil, then held above glowing coals, thereby roasting him.

On the third day, the 16th of September 1581, he was dragged to the place of his execution, where his body was broken by the wheel, slamming said wheel 42 times down upon him. Still alive, he was finally dismembered by quartering.

They certainly knew how to dispense rehabilitation back in those days!

Last Week’s Birthdays

Amanda Seyfried (28), Jay-Z (44), Julianne Moore (53), Woody Allen (78), Bette Midler (68), Frankie Muniz (33), Marisa Tomei (49), Jeff Bridges (64), Daryl Hannah (53), Ozzy Osbourne (65), Lucy Liu (45), Little Richard (81), Britney Spears (32), Eli Wallach Pictured (98), Tyra Banks (40), Brendan Fraser (45), Judd Apatow (46), Nelly Furtado (35), Sarah Silverman (43) and Tom Hulce (60).