Dead Pool 18th January 2026

Alas, no points to award this week. We all seemed to have missed the 142 year old Nasser bin Radan Al Rashid Al Wadaei, it’s almost like nobody believes that he was that old, or perhaps nobody fancied just scoring eight points.

Look Who You Could Have Had:

Derek Martin, 92, British actor (Law & Order, Eldorado, EastEnders).
Trevor A. Toussaint, 65, British actor (Hollyoaks).
Marcus Gilbert, 67, British actor (Army of Darkness, The Masks of Death, Rambo III), throat cancer.
Nasser bin Radan Al Rashid Al Wadaei, 142, Saudi longevity claimant.
Sheila Bernette, 94, English singer (The Good Old Days, The Black and White Minstrel Show) and actress (The Magnificent Seven Deadly Sins).
Eddie McCreadie, 85, Scottish football player (Chelsea, national team) and manager (Chelsea).
Scott Adams, 68, American cartoonist (Dilbert), prostate cancer.
Kenny Morris, 68, English drummer (Siouxsie and the Banshees).

In Other News

BBC presenter Reggie Yates has opened up about undergoing surgery after the discovery of a tumour over a year ago. The 42-year-old host shared a frank look into his secret health scare and admitted it was one of the “hardest moments of his life” as he initially chose to keep the operation secret. In a Substack post titled “New Year, Old Tumour”, Reggie opened up about his diagnosis, his fear around sharing the news, and his surgery to get the tumour removed. He explained that the tumour was found in his hand, but he had chosen to “hide and move on” from the experience of having the operation last year. It wasn’t until he reflected on the year alongside his wife that his feelings about it reemerged. “I got to the third item on my list and stopped,” he wrote. My pen had scribbled something I’d totally forgot. Or had I? In 2025, I’d endured one of the hardest moments of my adult life and overcome it. But for some reason, I’d chosen to bury it.” Reggie admitted that he had tried to repress the memory of discovering the tumour, revealing once it was found it took the team a week to find out if it was cancerous or not. “Like most men, my ‘concrete complex’ has existed almost as long as I have. A well held belief that invincibility is part of my DNA,” he said. “Minutes before surgery, I chose to fake the brave face. To be fair to myself, it’s hard not to crack dad jokes when you’re wearing compression socks and tiny paper panties.” Thankfully, the star is now on the mend – admitting his pride that he had gone from fearing he may lose the use of his hand in February, before releasing a book by the end of the year.

Diary excerpts belonging to the ‘secret’ daughter of Freddie Mercury will be released following her death this week, her widower has revealed. On Thursday, it was announced that Bibi had died at the age of 48 after being diagnosed with a rare form of spinal cancer. Her widower Thomas said in a statement that she died ‘peacefully after a long battle with chordoma, a rare spinal cancer, leaving two sons aged nine and seven’. Bibi’s death comes just months after she was identified as the secret daughter of late Queen singer Mercury, in a book written by author Lesley-Ann Jones titled Love, Freddie. Bibi was previously publicly known only as ‘B.’ Following the family’s initial statement, Bibi’s widower has since revealed details of her final wishes as her health began to deteriorate last year. ‘Her health began to fail this summer as we crossed the Andes Mountains on a holiday, she had decided in the last few months to gather the photos and excerpts from her father’s notebooks that supported what she had confided to Lesley Ann Jones in the book. The goal was to publish these elements in the fall of 2027. I will respect her wishes. She said that 2026 would be nothing but a big circus in the exploitation of what would have been her father’s 80th birthday and the 35th anniversary of his death. She dedicated the last months of her life to preparing the book and to preparing what is now the legacy of her children.’ He added: ‘It will be a book, a kind of photo album. My wife wanted all the proceeds from the sale of this photo album to be for the benefit of the paediatric oncology units.’ Thomas also claimed Bibi was ‘extremely affected’ by Mercury’s former fiancée Mary Austin denying any knowledge of her existence. He said that Bibi wrote to Austin’s business address many times over the years, but that the letters ‘remained unanswered.’ Bibi’s family announced her death in a statement, which said: ‘B is now with her beloved and loving father in the world of thoughts. Her ashes were scattered to the wind over the Alps.’ In May 2025, the late Bibi revealed she took a DNA test to confirm her paternity when, 34 years after the Queen star’s death, it was alleged he fathered a child after having a brief fling with a friend’s wife in 1976. In response to calls for DNA tests to be made public, author Jones wrote on social media: ‘To those “demanding” to see proof of a DNA test, otherwise they won’t believe it – please rest assured that the requisite verification was obtained, legal teams have been involved, but that such measures are private & not shared publicly. Thank you.’

A man who raised more than £420,000 by walking around his communal east London garden has died, aged 106. Dabirul Islam Choudhury OBE passed away in the early hours of Tuesday, January 13, at the Royal London Hospital. Inspired by Captain Tom, Dabirul, spearheaded a walking challenge aiming to reach 1.5 million steps worldwide. He raised the money by walking 970 laps of his garden in Bow, east London while he was fasting for the Islamic holy month of Ramadan. Nearly £116,000 of the total raised was donated to the NHS, while the remaining amount was divided between 30 charities in 52 countries as part of the Ramadan Family Commitment (RFC) Covid-19 crisis initiative. The RFC, who Dabirul was an ambassador for, is run by British-Bangladeshi television broadcaster Channel S. In 2020, he was made an OBE in the Queen’s birthday honours for his charitable efforts. Dabirul was born in 1st January 1920 in Bangladesh, then called British Assam. In 1957, Dabirul moved to England to study English Literature in London. Due to his education and command in the English language, he ended up as a community leader and settled in St Albans. His charity work was responsible for many community projects and raising money for the independence struggle of Bangladesh. Dabirul is an accomplished poet and has published over a thousand of his own poems. Dabirul also spends his time going to his local book clubs and poetry associations.

On This Day

1788 – The first elements of the First Fleet carrying 736 convicts from Great Britain to Australia arrive at Botany Bay.
1967 – Albert DeSalvo, the “Boston Strangler”, is convicted of numerous crimes and is sentenced to life imprisonment.
1977 – Australia’s worst rail disaster occurs at Granville, Sydney, killing 83.

Deaths