Dead Pool 12th October 2014

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

Look Who You Could Have Had:

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

In Other News

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

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

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

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

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

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

On This Day

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

Deaths

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

Last Week’s Birthdays

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

2013 League Table

[confidential]

Next Week peeps!