Dead Pool 20th November 2016

Afternoon all, welcome to spot the dead celebrity week. Maybe I’m being a little cruel and uneducated, but fuck me, who are these people? Six more weeks to go and all to pay for.

Look Who You Could Have Had:

• Leon Russell, 74, American Hall of Fame musician (The Wrecking Crew) and songwriter (“Tight Rope“).
• Lisa Lynn Masters, 53, American actress (Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt, The Girl in the Book, Gossip Girl), apparent suicide by hanging.
• Sharon Jones, 60, American singer (Sharon Jones & The Dap-Kings), pancreatic cancer.
• Yevgeni Lazarev, 79, Russian-American actor (Iron Man 2, The Sum of All Fears, Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare), cardiac arrest.

In Other News 

Restaurant critic AA Gill has revealed he has been diagnosed with the “full English” of cancers. The illness prompted his engagement to his partner of 23 years, Nicola Formby, with whom he has two children. Doctors found he had cancer, which has spread from his lungs to other parts of his body, after he went for an X-ray when people noticed he had lost weight. Gill, 62, who is having chemotherapy, said he does not “feel cheated” and has been “very lucky” in his life. The columnist, who is restaurant and TV critic for the Sunday Times, told the paper: “I’ve got an embarrassment of cancer, the full English. “There is barely a morsel of offal not included. I have a trucker’s gut-buster, gimpy, malevolent, meaty malignancy.” Doctors found he had a smoking-related cancer which had spread from his lungs – despite him giving up smoking 15 years ago. The illness has meant he is unable to ride a bike because one tumour affects his balance and he has been banned from flying because he cannot risk infections. Gill told readers of his column he was revealing his diagnosis because chemotherapy can alter the way things taste, adding: “If ever things start tasting like licked battery terminals, I’ll tell you.” Gill said he had visited a private doctor and paid for his own X-rays, but wanted to go back into the NHS because of the “connection it brings”. He told the newspaper: “My father would say he didn’t want to die in the trench, and I don’t want to die in a trench in Harley Street.”

Tara Palmer-Tomkinson has told how she feared she was going to die when doctors revealed she had a brain tumour. The 44-year-old former “It girl” has received treatment for the non-malignant growth in her pituitary gland since January and said it had now cleared. She told the media: “I went to the doctors to talk about my latest blood test results when I got back from skiing in January. I said: ‘What does this mean? Can you translate it?’ And the doctor said: ‘As I suspected, you have a brain tumour’.” “I got terribly frightened. I started thinking, ‘I’m going to die, I’m going to die. I’ve only got a couple of weeks to live.’ Stuff like that.” Palmer-Tomkinson, who has battled drug problems in the past, also said the blood tests found she was suffering with an auto-immune disease which had caused tiredness, joint pain and acute anaemia. So nothing to do with cocaine then..

An 89-year-old Canadian has made headlines for digging his own grave. “I love digging,” Jimmy Kickham, from Prince Edward Island, told CBC News, saying he feels pride in his personal project. Mr Kickham, who owns a construction business, has been digging graves and trenches for more than 60 years. “One day I just thought I’d do my own if I lived to be 90,” Mr Kichkam explained. He is in good health but turns 90 on Thursday. “I love digging. Just one of those things that gets into your system. It’s just work. Money. No matter what they wanted dug, I could do it,” he told the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. Mr Kichkam still works on most days, using the same earth mover that he bought 45 years ago. Eric Gallant, a maintenance worker for the St Alexis church in Rollo Bay, said he had never come across anything like it. “It’s something else. That’s one of a kind, I figure,” he said. “The only thing that’s missing is his casket.” “And me!” Mr Kickham quipped.

On This Day

• 1947 – The Princess Elizabeth marries Lieutenant Philip Mountbatten, who becomes the Duke of Edinburgh, at Westminster Abbey in London.
• 1985 – Microsoft Windows 1.0 is released.
• 1990 – Andrei Chikatilo, one of the Soviet Union‘s most prolific serial killers, is arrested; he eventually confesses to 56 killings.
• 1992 – In England, a fire breaks out in Windsor Castle, badly damaging the castle and causing over £50 million worth of damage.
• 1998 – The first module of the International Space Station, Zarya, is launched.

Deaths

• 1910 – Leo Tolstoy, Russian author and playwright (b. 1828)
• 2006 – Robert Altman, American director, producer, and screenwriter (b. 1925)
• 2015 – Peter Dimmock, English sportscaster and producer (b. 1920)

Last Week’s Birthdays

Rachel McAdams (38), Owen Wilson (48), Jodie Foster (54), Prince Charles (68), Meg Ryan (55), Jimmy Kimmel (49), Danny DeVito (72), Whoopi Goldberg (61), Larry King (83), Maggie Gyllenhaal (39), Linda Evans (74), Martin Scorsese (74), Gerard Butler (47), Anni-Frid Lyngstad (71), Beverly D’Angelo (65), Calvin Klein (74), Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio (58), Lauren Hutton (73), Martha Plimpton (46), RuPaul (56), Delroy Lindo (64), Sophie Marceau (50), Missi Pyle (44), Chad Kroeger (42) and Condoleezza Rice (62).

Next week peeps!