Dead Pool 18th January 2015

Points! Yes!! Points!!! With the sad departing of Britain’s oldest person, Ethel Lang, Stu has managed to score 136 points as he had her sown as his Cert. Fair play to him. We seem to be doing better than last year already! Also this week, we have a contribution from Julia, so remember to show your appreciation and extol her talents unless you think you can do better and submit your own contribution next week. Most people who have contributed in the past will admit, this ain’t as easy as it looks…

Look Who You Could Have Had:

• Taylor Negron, 57, American comedian and actor (Angels in the Outfield, Fast Times at Ridgemont High, Bio-Dome), cancer.
• Brian Clemens, 83, British screenwriter (Dr. Jekyll and Sister Hyde) and television producer (The Avengers, The Professionals).
• Anita Ekberg, 83, Swedish-Italian actress (La Dolce Vita, Paris Holiday, Back from Eternity).
• Trevor Ward-Davies, 70, British bassist (Dave Dee, Dozy, Beaky, Mick & Tich), cancer.
• Darrell Winfield, 85, American rancher and model, Marlboro Man (1968–1989).
• Sir Jack Hayward, 91, English businessman, property developer and philanthropist, president of Wolverhampton Wanderers.
• Ethel Lang, 114, British supercentenarian, nation’s oldest person.

In Other News

Crime writer Ruth Rendell is in a critical but stable condition after suffering a stroke. The 84-year-old, who also has a seat in the House Of Lords as a Labour peer, is best known for her series of novels featuring Chief Inspector Wexford. With more than 60 titles to her name, Rendell’s last book was The Girl Next Door, which came out last year. It was published along with a 50th anniversary edition of her debut novel From Doon With Death, which saw Inspector Wexford make his debut. In a statement released, the author is said to have experienced a “serious stroke” last week and is being looked after in hospital by her son. No doctors available?

In what we can only call an act of Darwinism in action, a man who accidentally shot his friend dead while testing if his bullet-proof vest worked has been jailed. Philip Harper, 46, died from a gunshot wound to the chest after his friend Ian Catley shot him. Mr Harper had bought what he believed to be a bullet-proof vest from an army surplus store the day before, Cambridgeshire Police said. It obviously wasn’t as bullet-proof as they expected. Sentencing him to seven years in jail at Southwark Crown Court, Judge Jeffrey Pegden QC told Catley: “You shot Mr Harper at a distance of less than 20 feet, causing him catastrophic injuries and immediate death.” He should have added that he was a stupid cunt and could have quite easily tested the vest by shooting it without his friend inside it.

A woman has been arrested after she reportedly chopped off her cheating husband’s penis, twice. The woman flew into a rage once she discovered her 32-year-old husband, father of five children, had been having an affair. His wife Feng, 30, found an image on his phone and in a rage grabbed a pair scissors and stormed into the room where he was sleeping, and attacked him. He was taken to hospital and emergency surgery was performed – but the wife returned to the hospital and cut it off for a second time, reportedly throwing it out of the window where it was lost. Doctors and police officers combed the area outside but failed to find the man’s missing member. They believed it may have been taken by a stray dog or cat. Yum yum!

On This Day

• 1788 – The first elements of the First Fleet carrying 736 convicts from England to Australia arrive at Botany Bay.
• 1884 – Dr. William Price attempts to cremate the body of his infant son, Jesus Christ Price, setting a legal precedent for cremation in the United Kingdom.
• 1896 – An X-ray generating machine is exhibited for the first time by H.L. Smith.
• 1903 – President Theodore Roosevelt sends a radio message to King Edward VII: the first transatlantic radio transmission originating in the United States.
• 1911 – Eugene B. Ely lands on the deck of the USS Pennsylvania stationed in San Francisco Bay, the first time an aircraft landed on a ship.
• 1967 – Albert DeSalvo, the “Boston Strangler“, is convicted of numerous crimes and is sentenced to life imprisonment.

Deaths

• 1936 – Rudyard Kipling, English author and poet, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1865)
• 1980 – Cecil Beaton, English fashion designer (b. 1904)
• 2009 – Tony Hart, English television host (b. 1925)

Obituary by JuliaB

Ethel Lang, quite literally, the last Victorian, has died. Mrs Lang was the only living British person to have been born during the reign of Queen Victoria and she lived to see six UK monarchs and 22 Prime Ministers. She was 114 years and 233 days. At age 22 she married young plumber William Lang and a year later the couple had a daughter, Margaret Bates, who is now 91 years old herself.

Her Grandmother lived till she was 92 and her great grandmother lived until she was 91. So, theoretically, if you shook her hand, you were 3 degrees of separation away from someone born in the late 17th, early 18th century!

The skilled cook regularly made her own bread and never smoked, rarely touching alcohol.

Her death means that 111-year-old Gladys Hooper, who lives on the Isle of Wight, is now Britain’s oldest person. Gladys will celebrate her 112th birthday on Dead Pool Sunday. (Hope she made it!) *Ed

It has left Jamaican Violet Brown, also 114 years of age, as the only surviving subject of Queen Victoria.

Last Week’s Birthdays

Faye Dunaway (74), Muhammad Ali (73), Howard Stern (61), Zooey Dechanel (35),  Kirstie Alley (64), James Earl Jones (84), Mary J. Blige (44), Melanie Chisholm (41), Jason Bateman (46), Michelle Obama (51), Jim Carrey (53), Kate Moss (41), Orlando Bloom (38), Betty White (93), Rush Limbaugh (64), Dave Grohl (46), LL Cool J (47), Carl Weathers (67), Mario Van Peebles (58), John Carpenter (67), James May (52), James Nesbitt (50), Jason Bateman (46), Mark Addy (51), Bill Bailey (50), John Sessions (62), Jason Connery (52), Evan Handler (54), Rod Stewart (70), and Traci Bingham (47).

2015 League Table

[confidential]

Next week peeps!