Dead Pool 15th March 2015

It is with a very heavy heart that I write this weeks edition of the Dead Pool. Sir Terry Pratchett has sadly passed away. I will write a little piece about him later in the newsletter, but as with all things, life does go on and there are points to distribute.

Paul and Mark both score with Sam Simon, 91 points each plus an extra 100 for Mark as he had him as a Cert. Well done both of you!

Now for the Pratchett scores: Dave J, Julia, Stu, Neil and Sophie, you all receive 84 points. I want to say well done, but I’d rather punch you in the head for having him listed at all 😛

So a lot of movement in the league table, check out who the new points leader is below!

Look Who You Could Have Had:

• Izola Curry, 98, American assailant, attempted to kill Martin Luther King Jr.
• Sam Simon, 59, American writer, producer and director (The Simpsons, Cheers, The Drew Carey Show), colorectal cancer.
• Windell Middlebrooks, 36, American actor (Body of Proof, The Suite Life on Deck, Scrubs).
• Richard Glatzer, 63, American director, writer and producer (Still Alice, America’s Next Top Model), ALS.

and

• Terry Pratchett, 66, British author (Discworld series), posterior cortical atrophy.

In Other News

Slipknot guitarist Mick Thomson has been hospitalised after sustaining serious injuries in a knife fight with his brother Andrew last Wednesday. Mick’s injuries included a stab wound to the back of the head. The fight took place at Mick’s home in Iowa and both siblings appeared to be under the influence of alcohol when police officers arrived. The brothers were reportedly driven to hospital in separate ambulances. Both siblings were hurt in the fight, but none of their injuries were deemed life-threatening by police and the altercation will not affect the band’s planned live dates.

Vladimir Putin’s spokesman has been forced to deny that the 62-year-old president is in poor health after a string of meetings were canceled and the Kremlin published old photographs to claim work was proceeding as usual. Concerns over Putin’s well-being were first raised earlier this week when he postponed a trip to Kazakhstan for talks. A source in the Kazakh government told Reuters that the visit was canceled because Putin had fallen ill. Putin has not been seen in public since a meeting and press conference with the Italian prime minister, Matteo Renzi, on the 5th March.

Pope Francis has marked the second anniversary of his election by giving an interview in which he says he expects his time at the Vatican to be short, and that he would be ready to resign rather than ruling the Catholic church for life. “I have a feeling my pontificate will be brief,” he told Mexico’s Televisa channel. Francis, who is 78, and apparently in good health, said “It is a vague feeling I have that the Lord chose me for a short mission. I am always open to that possibility.” Well, a hot tip from the voice of God no less!

On This Day

• 44 BC – Julius Caesar, Dictator of the Roman Republic, is stabbed to death by Marcus Junius Brutus, Gaius Cassius Longinus, Decimus Junius Brutus and several other Roman senators on the Ides of March.
• 1892 – Liverpool F.C. is founded.
• 1906 – Rolls-Royce Limited is incorporated.
• 1935 – Percy Shaw founded his company Reflecting Roadstuds Limited to make cat’s eyes.
• 1985 – The first Internet domain name is registered (symbolics.com).
• 1990 – Mikhail Gorbachev is elected as the first President of the Soviet Union.

Deaths

• 44 BC– Julius Caesar, Roman general and statesman (b. 100 BC)
• 1891 – Joseph Bazalgette, English engineer (b. 1819)
• 1937 – H. P. Lovecraft, American author (b. 1890)
• 1998 – Benjamin Spock, American pediatrician and author (b. 1903)
• 2003 – Thora Hird, English actress (b. 1911)
• 2009 – Ron Silver, American actor, director, and producer (b. 1946)
• 2014 – Clarissa Dickson Wright, English chef, author, and academic (b. 1947)

Sir Terry Pratchett by KoA

It’s very difficult to write something about a man who has just died that you idolised, but I couldn’t let this week pass without saying a few words. Pterry was a lot of things to many people, foremost a writer and author, a defender of Orang-Utan’s, a voice for Alzheimers Disease and a pro-choice supporter for assisted dying. Personally I only ever saw him as a fantastic writer of books.

I stumbled across my first Pratchett by accident. I was a member of a book club that sent you novels by post, even if you didn’t want them. So this particular month I forgot to order a book and Moving Pictures landed on our doormat. What drew me to the book initially was the artwork of Josh Kirby, I’d never seen anything quite like it. So, as not to judge a book by its cover, I sat down to read it. I was instantly hooked and ordered all of the back catalogue. Since then I have bought every single book in hardback, even through those tough times when I was out of  work.

I was lucky enough to meet Terry on a couple of occasions , both during book signings, but one sticks out more for me as I’d been waiting patiently in line for over two hours in a queue that took the length of Bangor’s High Street. By the time I got to Terry, he must have signed at least two thousand books, but he was very charming and made conversation with this particular star-struck kid. He asked my name to sign the book and questioned me about Welsh names in general. We had a brief chat about such things and I walked away in awe. I was expecting a quick signature from a tired author, not a kind man in a hat who was genuinely interested in the people coming to see him. But from what other people have said since his untimely death, this was who he was. A year later, Soul Music was published. I rather hope that our little conversation helped him write that book, just a tiny bit, who knows…

His appeal was, and still is, very far reaching. I bring up Twitter as an example. How many of you clicked on my profile and saw that I liked Discworld? I bet you thought, he’s like me, he ‘gets’ it and pressed the follow button. We became friends off the back of a mutual love of the written word, words written by Terry Pratchett.  And let’s face it, who doesn’t like the Discworld novels?? If we go by the Top 200 Books Of All Time as defined by the BBC’s The Big Read, only two authors have five books in the top 100, Terry Pratchett and Charles Dickens. The author with most books in the top 200 was Pratchett with fifteen!

So, we still have one more book of Terry’s to read, which is earmarked to be published later this year, another instalment in the Tiffany Aching series called The Shepherd’s Crown. I’m for one looking forward to his swan song.

To finish, I’ll share with you the final words on Terry’s Twitter feed.

Last Week’s Birthdays

Prince Edward, The Earl of Wessex (51), Juliette Binoche (51), Freddie Prinze Jr. (39), Sharon Stone (57), Chuck Norris (75), Johnny Knoxville (44), John Hamm (44), Robin Thicke (28), Emili Sande (28), Mitt Romney (68), Rupert Murdoch (84), Ron Jeremy (62), Aaron Eckhart (47), William H. Macy (65), Didier Drogba (37), Liza Minnelli (69), Pete Doherty (36), Billy Crystal (67) and Michael Caine (82).

Next week peeps!