Dead Pool 19th September 2021

Points!!! Well done to Laura, Louise, Julie, Neil, Mark, Chrissy, Martin, Paula, and Ron for correctly listing Jimmy Greaves. All of you get 69 poin1ts each. But a special well done to Martin who finally broke his duck, now everyone has scored some points this year. Also, as some of you who follow the Telegram channel already know, we have a further 44 points for Paul C as I missed the passing of Arthur Smith back in August. Well done everyone! 

Look Who You Could Have Had:

And a missed death from 21st August 2021

In Other News

Brazil soccer legend Pele has re-entered an intensive care unit at Sao Paulo’s Albert Einstein Hospital, the evil flying monkeys on Friday, in an apparent deterioration of his health after he left the unit earlier this week. The hospital said it had no new information. Pele, an 80-year-old, three-time World Cup winner, was re-admitted to the ICU due to acid reflux. He had a colon tumour removed this month and was transferred out of the ICU on Tuesday. After leaving the ICU, he said in a message to fans on Instagram that he was ready for “90 minutes, plus extra time.” But that proved to be rather premature. Pele has suffered from hip problems for years and cannot walk unaided. His public appearances were already being cut before the COVID-19 pandemic and since then he has made few unnecessary forays outside his house near Santos. It was initially reported that he was not “seriously ill” in hospital, but after the operation to remove the tumour he stated he was “used to celebrating great victories” and would “face this match with a smile”. Now 80 years old, Pele earned 92 caps for Brazil and won three World Cup titles, in 1958, 1962 and 1970.  

Coronation Street’s Craig Charles has revealed how his “breathing is laboured” after getting Covid. The actor and DJ, 57, told fans he had tested positive for coronavirus and is self-isolating. The Red Dwarf star took to Twitter to tell followers he was feeling very unwell. Craig’s post read: “Okay guys I don’t want to alarm, but I’ve caught the Covid. Breathing is a bit laboured which is a worry, but I’ve got an oxymonitor so so far no hospital. Starting to feel a bit better but have to isolate, Sorry to let everyone down. Back soon.” Hundreds of fans then responded by sending the one-time rapist (allegedly) supportive messages. One fan wrote: “Get well soon Craig, my wife and I both have it this week too, trying to rest up, hope you are too.” Craig became a household name when he landed the role of slob technician Dave Lister, the last known survivor of the human race, in the cult BBC sci-fi comedy series Red Dwarf, beating Hugh Laurie to the role. In 2005, Craig joined the Coronation Street cast as taxi driver Lloyd Mullaney and was given free rein to introduce various aspects of the character’s personality. He quit his role on the soap in May 2015 in order to concentrate on filming the new series of Red Dwarf.  

Elton John has postponed dates of his farewell tour after injuring himself in an “awkward” fall, which has resulted in him experiencing “difficulty moving”. The star, 74, revealed that his upcoming UK and European tour dates of his 2021 Farewell Yellow Brick Road Tour have been rescheduled to 2023, after being left in “considerable” pain following a fall earlier this year. In a post to his 3.6 million Instagram followers, the Tiny Dancer hitmaker shared that he’d hurt his hip after “falling awkwardly on a hard surface”. Elton wrote: “It is with great sadness and a heavy heart that I am forced to reschedule the 2021 dates of my Farewell Yellow Brick Road tour in Europe and the UK to 2023. At the end of my summer break I fell awkwardly on a hard surface and have been in considerable pain and discomfort in my hip ever since. Despite intensive physio and specialist treatment, the pain has continued to get worse and is leading to increasing difficulties moving,” he said. “I have been advised to have an operation as soon as possible to get me back to full fitness and make sure there are no long-term complications. I will be undertaking a programme of intensive physiotherapy that will ensure a full recovery and a return to full mobility without pain.” Despite postponing his tour dates, the iconic singer told that he would still be going ahead with a charity event, as he didn’t want to disappoint the organisation. Elton explained: “I am going to complete the charitable Global Citizen event on 25th September as I don’t want to let a charity down. Being just five songs it’s a very different physical undertaking to the demands of playing for close to three hours every night on tour and travelling overnight between countries.” He confirmed that following the event, he will be having surgery to ensure he can start performing in as soon as three months time. “After this I will be having the operation to ensure the tour can get back on the road in January of 2022 in New Orleans,” he continued. “I know how patient my incredible fans have been since Covid halted touring last year, and it breaks my heart to keep you waiting any longer.” Elton signed off by promising his loyal fans that the postponed farewell show will be worth waiting for. Last year, the star revealed in February that he had been diagnosed with walking pneumonia, which is an inflammation of the airways. 

First Dates’ barman Merlin Griffiths has revealed he is battling bowel cancer after receiving a bleak diagnosis from doctors at Northampton General Hospital. The 46-year-old was told he has a 75% chance of living for more than five years after medical tests unearthed a stage three tumour that measured 4.5cm in length. Speaking to the Evil Monkeys, Merlin said: ‘I’m keeping that positive outlook, but I’ve a morbid sense of humour. I tell people, “I have colorectal cancer… it’s a real pain in the arse!” Merlin has a seven-year-old daughter called Alix with his partner Lucille, 40, who he has been with for more than a decade and will be by his side as he faces a year of life-saving treatment. When the barman told his young daughter of the troubling diagnosis he reassured her of the powers of modern medicine and gushed about the public healthcare system. He said: ‘I have so much faith in medicine and the NHS in this country, which is just so incredible.’ Keeping his emotions behind closed doors, Merlin admitted: ‘I’ve shed a tear in private. But you can choose “to do” or “not to do”. I chose to lead my life as normal, to stick to the facts about it, and to keep putting one step in front of the other.’ The TV personality, who became a household name alongside Fred Sirieix in the First Dates restaurant, started to feel pain in June but thought it was caused by an old stomach injury from a car accident in his 20s. Merlin was diagnosed with bowel cancer six weeks ago and said his tumour looked like an alien and felt like a walnut stuck inside of him. Doctors discovered the tumour when they gave the barman an emergency sigmoidoscopy to probe his lower intestine after the star spent three months telling people he felt something wrong in his body. Merlin admitted he was terrified by the ordeal but immediately focused on his chances of survival following his diagnosis. The star revealed that his tumour wanted to move into the tissue surrounding it but wasn’t ‘lymph’ – meaning the cancer thankfully hadn’t spread. His oncologist hopes to remove his tumour in three months time, after which he will continue with other life-saving treatment.

Professor Tim Wilson, the former UK Independence Party candidate for South Northamptonshire and more famously a contestant on the Channel 4 series The Circle, announced on Instagram that he’s had a rather serious bowel cancer diagnosis after haemorrhaging into his trousers! He also revealed that whilst having his balloon knot studied by medical professionals, that a nurse recognised him from the show. He has no idea how she did so as he was wearing a surgical mask and had his trousers around his ankles at the time. Anyhow, he’s off for a ‘serious operation’ next week. While taking part in The Circle, Wilson claimed he actually voted to Remain and wished to “expose UKIP from the inside” which probably helped him win the shows “Viewers’ Champion” title for being the most popular finalist by viewer’s vote, winning a £30,000 prize. 

On This Day

  • 1846 – Two French shepherd children, Mélanie Calvat and Maximin Giraud, experience a Marian apparition on a mountaintop near La Salette, France, now known as Our Lady of La Salette.
  • 1881 – U.S. President James A. Garfield dies of wounds suffered in a July 2nd shooting. Vice President Chester A. Arthur becomes President upon Garfield’s death.
  • 1970 – Michael Eavis hosts the first Glastonbury Festival.
  • 1991 – Ötzi the Iceman is discovered in the Alps on the border between Italy and Austria.

Deaths

  • 1881 – James A. Garfield, American general, lawyer, and politician, and the 20th President of the United States (b. 1831).
  • 1998 – Patricia Hayes, English actress (b. 1909).
  • 2015 – Jackie Collins, English novelist (b. 1937).

Last Meals

Bobby Joe Long was an American serial killer and rapist who was executed by the state of Florida for the murder of Michelle Denise Simms. Long abducted, sexually assaulted, and murdered at least 10 women in the Tampa Bay Area in Florida during an eight-month period in 1984. He released one of his last victims, 17-year-old Lisa McVey, after raping her over a period of 26 hours. McVey provided critical information to the police that enabled them to arrest Long.

Long was born on October 14, 1953 in Kenova, West Virginia to Joe and Louetta Long. Long was born with an extra X chromosome, also known as 47,XXY, a specific variant of Klinefelter syndrome. This condition results in excessive oestrogen production yielding some female traits such as breast development. Long was teased as a child for his large breasts and underwent breast reduction surgery in adolescence. Long also suffered multiple head injuries as a child. Long had a dysfunctional relationship with his mother; he slept in her bed until he was a teenager and reportedly resented her multiple short-term boyfriends. Long married his high school girlfriend in 1974, with whom he had two children before she filed for divorce in 1980.

Long committed at least 50 rapes as the “Classified Ad Rapist” in Fort Lauderdale, Ocala, Miami, and Dade County.

Starting around 1981, Long began contacting women through the Penny Saver and other classified ads. When Long found a woman alone, he asked to use the bathroom, took out his “rape kit” and raped and robbed the woman. Long was tried and convicted for rape in 1981 but requested a new trial, which was granted. The charges were later dropped, because that was a thing back then….

Long moved to the Tampa Bay area in 1983. In 1984, while on probation for assault, Long raped and strangled 20-year-old Artiss “Ann” Wick in March; her body was discovered in a rural area on November 22, 1984.

Over the next eight months, Long abducted, raped, and murdered at least 10 women in three counties in the Tampa Bay area. The investigation involved personnel from the Hillsborough County Sheriff’s Office, the FBI, the Tampa Police Department (TPD), the Pasco County Sheriff’s Office (PCSO), and the Florida Department of Law Enforcement (FDLE).

The bodies of the victims were typically found in a state of decomposition long after the murders, having been dumped near a rural roadside or dragged into the woods. Long appears to have targeted vulnerable women, including abducting women walking alone and those working as sex workers, persuading women to enter his car where he would rape and torture them. Of Long’s 10 known victims, five of the women were identified as known sex workers, two as exotic dancers. The remaining three victims were a factory worker, a student, and one with an unknown occupation.

During this period, Long also continued his classified-ad rapes, attacking 33-year-old Linda Nuttall in her home.

In the early hours of November 3, 1984, Long abducted 17-year-old Lisa McVey as she rode her bike home from work. She was blindfolded and taken to Long’s home, where he repeatedly raped her. Aware of the danger she was in, the blindfolded McVey reported leaving as many fingerprints in Long’s home as she could to aid any future police investigation. After 26 hours, Long released McVey and she provided investigators with information on his home, car and a time period in which she heard him use an ATM Machine. This led to police identifying Long and he was arrested on November 16, 1984. He was linked to the murders through red carpet fibres found on the bodies of several victims.

At the time of his capture, Long was wanted in three Tampa Bay area jurisdictions where investigators had collected multiple forms of forensic evidence, including clothing, carpet fibres, semen, ligature marks, and rope knots.

Long was arrested outside a movie theatre on November 16, 1984, and charged with the sexual battery and kidnapping of Lisa McVey. Long signed a formal Miranda waiver, and consented to questioning. After the detectives procured a confession for the McVey case,  their questioning focused on a series of unsolved sexual battery homicides in the Tampa Bay area. As the detectives questioned Long about the murders, he replied, “I’d rather not answer that.”

The detectives continued the interrogation, and handed Long photographs of the various murder victims. At this point, Long stated, “The complexion of things sure have changed since you came back into the room. I think I might need an attorney.” No attorney was provided, and Long eventually confessed to eight murders in Hillsborough County, and one murder in Pasco County.

Fibre evidence analysis by the FBI linked Long’s vehicle to most of his victims.

According to the Florida Department of Corrections, Long was ultimately serving one five-year sentence, four 99-year sentences, 28 life sentences, and one death sentence.

On April 23, 2019, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis signed Long’s death warrant, this being the first death warrant signed by DeSantis since he took office in January 2019. Long’s subsequent appeals were denied and he was executed by lethal injection on May 23, 2019, more than 30 years after his conviction. He ate his final meal at 9:30 am local time; he requested roast beef, bacon, french fries and soda. He was pronounced dead at 6:55 pm and had made no last statement.

Last Week’s Birthdays

Danielle Panabaker (34), Jeremy Irons (73), David McCallum (88), Jimmy Fallon (47), Twiggy (72), Jason Sudeikis (46), Jada Pinkett Smith (50), James Marsden (48), Keeley Hazell (35), Tim McInnerny (65), Cassandra Peterson (70), Bruce Spence (76), Mickey Rourke (69), Madeline Zima (36), Amy Poehler (50), Nick Jonas (29), Danny John-Jules (61), Tom Hardy (44), Tommy Lee Jones (75), Oliver Stone (75), Jimmy Carr (49), Brendan O’Carroll (66), Andrew Lincoln (48), Sam Neill (74), and Walter Koenig (85).

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