Dead Pool 16th October 2016

At last, after a long drought of  nothingness, we have points to award! Well done to Julia, Wombat and Mark for guessing that Thailand’s King Bhumibol Adulyadej would pass away this year, 62 points each, but Martin gets 162 for having him as a Cert, which also gives us a new points leader! Shockingly, we all missed out on Hilda Ogden, perhaps like me you thought she’d died years ago!

Look Who You Could Have Had:

• Gary Dubin, 57, American actor (The Partridge Family, The Aristocats, Diamonds Are Forever), bone cancer.
• Patricia Barry, 93, American actress (All My Children, The Guiding Light, Days of Our Lives).
• Robert Bateman, 80, American songwriter and record producer (“Please Mr. Postman“), heart attack.
• Bhumibol Adulyadej, 88, Thai monarch, King (since 1946), world’s longest-serving head of state.
• Jean Alexander, 90, English actress (Coronation Street, Last of the Summer Wine).

In Other News

The death of King Bhumibol Adulyadej of Thailand means Queen Elizabeth II has become the world’s longest-reigning living monarch. The Queen became monarch at the age of 25 on the death of her father King George VI on 6 February 1952. Now 90, she has reigned for 64 years, eight months and ten days, or considerably more than two thirds of her life. Before his death on Wednesday at the age of 88, the Thai king had chalked up more than 70 years and four months on the throne. The Queen has a comfortable margin over the next longest-serving monarch, the Sultan of Brunei. Hassanal Bolkiah can boast 49 years and twelve days on the throne of the tiny, oil-rich Asian state, having ascended the throne on 4th October 1967. The wealthy Sultan is a car enthusiast, reportedly owning a private collection of up to 5,000 luxury sports cars. Qaboos bin Said al-Said has been Sultan of Oman since 1970, when he overthrew his father in a coup, giving him 46 years, 2 months on the throne so far. Prince Charles, incidentally, holds a world record of his own – as the longest-waiting heir apparent, surpassing his great-great-grandfather Edward VII who waited for more than 59 years for Queen Victoria to die. Her impressive stint is dwarfed, however, by the reign of Sobhuza II of Swaziland, whose period on the throne, from 1899 to 1982, overlapped with both the reign of Queen Victoria and the premiership of Margaret Thatcher. Having sired around 210 children by 70 wives in that time, he had more than 1,000 grandchildren at the time of his death.

Singer Janet Jackson has officially confirmed she is expecting her first child, at the age of 50. Speculation about her pregnancy surfaced in April when she postponed her ‘Unbreakable’ tour, saying she wanted to focus on planning a family with her husband, Wissam al-Mana. She was recently spotted in London shopping for baby essentials. A source close to the Jackson family said: “She is super excited about her pregnancy and is doing extremely well. She actually feels very good about everything.” Janet Jackson is far from the only famous face to give birth later in life. Oscar-winning Halle Berry had her second child at 47, three years ago, and John Travolta’s wife Kelly Preston gave birth to her third child at 48.

A giant panda believed to have been the oldest ever kept in captivity has died at the age of 38, officials say. The death of Jia Jia, whose age in human terms was more than 100 years, was announced by the Hong Kong theme park where she lived. Her condition had worsened rapidly in recent weeks and she had lost her appetite, according to local reports. She was put down by vets at Ocean Park, where she had lived since 1999. A Hong Kong government spokesman thanked the park for providing Jia Jia with care and support and added that it was “saddened” by the news. Born in 1978 in the wild in Sichuan, China, Jia Jia was given to Hong Kong in 1999 to mark the semi-autonomous city’s handover by Britain two years earlier. Pandas normally live to around 20 years of age in the wild, and 25 in captivity.

And finally, a father has claimed his 25-year-old son was brutally murdered and eaten by inmates during a month-long riot at a Venezuelan prison. Juan Carlos Herrara told local media his son, Juan Carlos Herrera Jr, was stabbed, hanged, dismembered and then eaten at the Táchira Detention Center. Mr Herrara’s son was jailed in 2015 for robbery and had become caught up in the prison mutiny, which reportedly began on the 8th September when eight visitors and two guards were taken hostage over extreme overcrowding in the jail. According to reports, 350 men had been crammed into the  detention centre, which has a capacity of 120. Speaking to reporters on Monday, after a visit to the prison three days after the mutiny had subsided, Mr Herrara said: “One of those who was with him when he was murdered saw everything that happened. “My son and two others were taken by 40 people, stabbed, hanged to bleed, and then Dorancel butchered them to feed all detainees,” referring to the notorious Dorancel “people-eater” Vargas – jailed in 1999 for cannibalism. “The inmate with whom I spoke to told me that he was beaten with a hammer in order to force him to eat the remains of the two boys. “I beg you to give me at least one bone so we can bury him and relieve some of this pain.” An anonymous police source confirmed to the media that two inmates were missing following the riots.

On This Day

• 1793 – Marie Antoinette, widow of Louis XVI, is guillotined at the height of the French Revolution.
• 1834 – Much of the ancient structure of the Palace of Westminster in London burns to the ground.
• 1923 – The Walt Disney Company is founded by Walt Disney and his brother, Roy Disney.
• 1975 – Rahima Banu, a two-year-old girl from the village of Kuralia in Bangladesh, is the last known person to be infected with naturally occurring smallpox.
• 1984 – The Bill debuts on ITV, eventually becoming the longest-running police procedural in British television history.

Deaths

• 1793 – Marie Antoinette, Austrian wife of Louis XVI of France (b. 1755)
• 2001 – Etta Jones, American singer-songwriter (b. 1928)
• 2007 – Deborah Kerr, Scottish actress (b. 1921)

Last Week’s Birthdays

Tony Shalhoub (63), Scott Bakula (62), David Lee Roth (62), Joan Cusak (54), Jane Krakowski (48), Emily Deschanel (40), Daryl Hall (70), Stephen Moyer (47), Hugh Jackman (48), Paul Simon (75), Sacha Baron Cohen (45), Sammy Hagar (69), Roger Moore (89), Cliff Richard (76), Lori Petty (53), Steve Coogan (51), Ralph Loren (77), Dominic West (47), and Sarah Ferguson (57).

The Last Word

“Is it the Fourth?” – Thomas Jefferson, U.S. President, died. July 4th, 1826

Next week peeps!