Dead Pool 1st November 2020

Points!! Let’s start by awarding Doug, Paul and Laura 72 points each for the demise of Nobby Styles; and not to be outdone, Jemm scores with the passing of Sean Connery, 60 points! Well done all of you! The league table has changed somewhat, some interesting familial rivalries being very close too, and only two months to go!

Look Who You Could Have Had:

In Other News

Sooty puppeteer Matthew Corbett first experienced symptoms of Covid-19 when he popped down to the cellar to fetch a bottle of wine on his birthday. As he came up the stairs on March 28, just days after the start of lockdown, the 72-year-old started to sweat, felt dizzy and started to hallucinate. Within days, Matthew was admitted to hospital, suffering from a range of severe symptoms, including chest pains and pneumonia. Seven months on, the ordeal has left him feeling breathless, fatigued and so frail that he is no longer able to do the DIY and gardening jobs he previously enjoyed. Struggling to cope and with no NHS aftercare, reluctantly he and his wife Sallie have sold their much-loved house in Cheshire and, in August, moved to a retirement village in West Sussex where more help would be on hand. Matthew took over as the puppeteer of Sooty, Sweep and Soo in 1976, after his father Harry Corbett, who created the trio, had a heart attack. He retired in 1998, aged 50, having sold the brand to the Bank of Yokohama for £1.4 million, and over the next 20 years developed a number of health problems, including type 2 diabetes.

Dame Patricia Routledge is ‘resting’ following yet another fall. Dame Patricia, who is 91, “has suffered injury following a fall and has been advised to take a period of rest in order to speed recovery.” Best known for her role as Hyacinth Bucket in Keeping Up Appearances, has a history of falls in recent years, beginning in 2017 when she was forced to cancel her appearance in July’s Buxton International Festival when she had a fall just before going on stage. At the time she bounced back and thanked the Stockport’s Stepping Hill A&E with free tickets for the ‘wonderful treatment’ she received. Sadly most of the main cast from Keeping Up Appearances have died, with the exception of herself and Judy Cornwell who played Daisy, it’s a very sparse list. 

Artist Tracey Emin had an operation this summer after a cancerous tumour was found in her bladder, she has said. Emin, 57, was diagnosed in the spring, had surgery two months ago and is now in remission. But she said she is too weak to return to making art. “Yesterday, I was crying because I wanted to paint and I didn’t have the energy to do it,” she said. Emin was nominated for the Turner Prize in 1999 and is one of Britain’s best-known and most celebrated excuse for an artist. She said she had been working on a semi-abstract painting early in lockdown that had been “keeping her up at night”. Only after her diagnosis did she realise it resembled her bladder. “It’s exactly the same as my bladder with the tumour in it, before I knew I had the cancer – it’s brilliant!” she said. Emin, who is based in Margate, Kent, is known for such installations as her unmade bed and the tent Everyone I Have Ever Slept With. Emin’s operation involved removing many of her female reproductive organs. She told the us she had “half my body chopped out, including half my vagina”. No doubt the parts will end up in an installation piece soon enough. 

England World Cup winner and Manchester United legend  Sir Bobby Charlton has been diagnosed with dementia. The news follows the deaths of his older brother Jack in July and fellow World Cup-winner Nobby Stiles on Friday, both of whom had also been diagnosed with dementia. His wife, Lady Norma Charlton, confirmed Sir Bobby’s diagnosis to us and said that the family were happy for this to be reported. She also expressed a hope that the knowledge of Sir Bobby’s diagnosis could help others. Now 83, Sir Bobby is celebrated across the footballing world for his achievements on the field. As well as playing every minute of the 1966 World Cup triumph, he won the Ballon d’Or later that year and, having survived the Munich Air Disaster of 1958, he inspired Manchester United to their first European Cup triumph in 1968 with two goals in the final.

On This Day

  • 1512 – The ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, painted by Michelangelo, is exhibited to the public for the first time.  
  • 1755 – In Portugal, Lisbon is totally devastated by a massive earthquake and tsunami, killing between 60,000 and 90,000 people.  
  • 1800 – John Adams becomes the first President of the United States to live in the Executive Mansion (later renamed the White House).  
  • 1896 – A picture showing the bare breasts of a woman appears in National Geographic magazine for the first time.  
  • 1951 – Operation Buster–Jangle: Six thousand five hundred American soldiers are exposed to ‘Desert Rock’ atomic explosions for training purposes in Nevada. Participation is not voluntary. 
  • 1955 – The Vietnam War begins. That went well… 

Deaths

  • 1982 – King Vidor, American director, producer, and screenwriter (b. 1894)  
  • 1985 – Phil Silvers, American actor and comedian (b. 1911)  
  • 2005 – Michael Piller, American screenwriter and producer (b. 1948)  

Halloween Fun!

One Halloween in the Bronx, teenagers threw eggs at a car. The eggs probably cost the boys a few dollars. They cost Karl Jackson his life. The year was 1998. Mr. Jackson and his girlfriend were picking up her 9-year-old son from a children’s party. Mr. Jackson had turned 21 weeks earlier. He was a quiet young man, the son of a nurse and a postal worker. He usually avoided going out on Halloween, not because he was too busy he was a data entry clerk at Morgan Stanley but because he thought it was too dangerous. The teenagers’ eggs struck their car. Mr. Jackson stepped out of the vehicle. An argument began. Mr. Jackson had sat back down in the passenger seat when one of the teenagers pulled out a gun. A single shot rang out, striking Mr. Jackson in the head, killing him. “I think it took us two years to even talk about it,” said Gloria Jackson, 62, Mr. Jackson’s mother. “We were just devastated. We never thought that anyone from our family would be murdered, especially  on a holiday, for something stupid.” 

Halloween eggings have left a violent legacy in New York City. Since 1984, at least 24 people have been seriously wounded or killed in stabbings, shootings, beatings or accidents sparked by egg-throwing confrontations around Halloween. All 24 cases played out in roughly the same way: a group of boys hurled eggs at pedestrians, cars or houses; the targets confronted the throwers; and violence erupted. Most of the 24 victims were teenagers or young men. The New York Police Department said it did not compile statistics on eggings. The tally of 24 victims comes from a review of articles in The New York Times, The Daily News, The New York Post and Newsday that described Halloween egg-throwing episodes. Caught up in the thrill and anonymity of wearing costumes and masks, teenagers have long used Halloween as an excuse to wreak havoc. 

Halloween eggings have occasionally led to attacks in other parts of the country, but only in New York City has the practice left two dozen dead and wounded. Some like Mr. Jackson, who had the audacity to confront egg-throwers, have been murdered. Some who have been hit with eggs have chased the culprits and killed them. Some who have thrown eggs have died trying to get away. The seemingly harmless prank of a tossed egg has been perceived as a kind of ultimate insult, the sudden splatter and mess touching off a rage in people. For police officers in the 104th Precinct in Queens, eggings are serious business: they ask merchants not to sell eggs or shaving cream to minors during Halloween week and distribute “No Eggs” posters to stores, as part of a campaign started by the Juniper Park Civic Association. 

Two days before Halloween in 1994, a man leaving a bar in Brooklyn was hit with eggs tossed by several boys. The man stabbed and killed one of the boys, a 12-year-old. In 1996, a 10-year-old Brooklyn boy was shot in the neck by a stray bullet after an egg fight on Halloween. 

On Oct. 29, 2005, Joseph Padro, 31, the brother of a police detective, was shot and killed in the Bronx after he chased a group of teenagers who pelted his minivan with eggs. One of those he chased, Jeffrey Ivey, 15, never admitted that he threw an egg that hit the minivan  witnesses said he had but he pleaded guilty to second-degree murder. He was sentenced to five years to life in prison. “Whether he threw it or not, the deceased thought he had,” said Mr. Ivey’s lawyer, Robert M. Moll. “What may start off as a prank does not always end how people may think, and in this case, it led to tragic results for both the deceased and Jeffrey Ivey.” 

Every Halloween, on the anniversary of Mr. Jackson’s death, his family gathers at Woodlawn Cemetery in the Bronx. They write messages to him, on painted stones they leave at his grave. His sister, Karlyn Jackson, was pregnant at the time of the shooting. The nephew he never knew is now 11. Mr. Jackson’s grandmother, Sally Bagley, still keeps a pair of his shoes at the top of the stairway. 

The teenager prosecuted for killing Mr. Jackson, Curtis Sterling, was 17 when he was arrested. Serving 20 years, he turned 29 in June, inmate No. 99A4542 at a state prison in Ulster County. Every October Mr. Sterling receives a Halloween card in the mail. The cards read: “I’m glad you’re still there.” It’s from Mr. Jackson’s mother.

Last Week’s Birthdays

Toni Collette (48), Natalia Tena (36), Jenny McCarthy (48), Anthony Kiedis (58), Erica Cerra (41), Peter Jackson (59), Stephen Rea (74), Willow Smith (20), Sanjeev Bhaskar (56), Michael J. Anderson (67), Vanilla Ice (53), Fiona Dourif (39), Clémence Poésy (38), Henry Winkler (75), Jessica Hynes (48), Juliet Stevenson (64), Ivanka Trump (39), Winona Ryder (49), Rufus Sewell (53), Ben Foster (40), Richard Dreyfuss (73), Dan Castellaneta (63), Joaquin Phoenix (46), Julia Roberts (53), Annie Potts (68), Matt Smith (38), Gwendoline Christie (42), Nolan Gould (22), Caitlyn Jenner (71), Chris Bauer (54), Inbar Lavi (34), John Cleese (81), Robert Picardo (67), Kelly Osbourne (36), Jon Heder (43), Cary Elwes (58), Anthony Rapp (49), Seth MacFarlane (47), Tom Cavanagh (57), and Roger Allam (67).

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