Dead Pool 23rd July 2023

What is this??? Points to award!!! With the sad passing of legendary crooner Tony Bennett, Neil, Nickie, Dave, Jamie, and Gwenan score 54 points each, however Fiona had him down as her Cert, so scores a fabulous 154 points! Well done everyone!

Look Who You Could Have Had:

• Josephine Chaplin, 74, American actress (The Canterbury Tales, Escape to the Sun, Nuits Rouges).
• Kevin Mitnick, 59, American computer security consultant, author (The Art of Deception, The Art of Intrusion) and convicted hacker, pancreatic cancer.  
• Tony Bennett, 96, American singer (“I Left My Heart in San Francisco“, “Rags to Riches“, “Because of You“), 20-time Grammy winner. 
• Ann Clwyd, 86, Welsh politician, MP (1984–2019) and MEP (1979–1984). 
• Vince Hill, 89, English singer (“Edelweiss“) and songwriter.

In Other News

Emergency services were called to Brigitte Bardot’s Saint Tropez home on Wednesday after the iconic French actress and animal rights activist suffered breathing difficulties, according to French media reports. News of her malaise sent French media outlets into overdrive amid fears for the well-being of the 88-year-old actress. Her husband Bernard d’Ormale was later reported to have told local newspaper Var Martin that his wife’s breathing was back under control and she was feeling better. “It was around 9 o’clock when Brigitte had trouble breathing. It was stronger that usual but she didn’t lose consciousness… the fireman came and gave her oxygen and then stayed to monitor her,” he said. He suggested high temperatures in Saint Tropez as Southern Europe suffers a prolonged heatwave had been a contributing factor. “Like all people of a certain age, she can no longer stand the heat,” he said. Bardot remains an icon of French cinema even though she was last on set 50 years ago. After stepping away from cinema, Bardot devoted herself to animal rights causes. She set up the Fondation Brigitte Bardot in 1986 to support this work, financing its launch through the sale of jewellery and other personal effects. Bardot has lived a fairly private life in recent years but took to the social networks this week to pay tribute to actress and singer Jane Birkin, following her death at the age of 76 at the weekend. “I am really sad. Jane is gone. When one is so pretty, so fresh, so spontaneous, with the voice of a child, one doesn’t have the right to die. She will remain forever in our hearts,” she said in a handwritten note, posted on Twitter.  

Shane MacGowan has suffered a new health scare and has spent days in intensive care. The Pogues legend, 65, was taken to hospital and spent a number of days in intensive care for an unspecified health issue. It’s understood the singer-songwriter has been treated in a Dublin hospital since late June. His wife Victoria did not address the reason for his hospital admission. The latest health scare comes just months after his last hospital stay in December 2022 when he was treated for an infection. Victoria told the Flying Monkeys: “He is still in hospital but he is doing well and being looked after. I didn’t want to worry people. He is out of the ICU and doing well.” She recently hinted at the latest health scare in an Instagram post last month in which she tagged her husband’s account. She said: “There has been a lot of turbulence in my life recently and it’s been very emotional and also scary. “But this past few days I have noticed that even though there’s a LOT of fear there is also a huge amount of love and support and incredible blessings.” Shane now uses a wheelchair following accidents in 2016 and 2020. He now has a full-time carer after he fell and broke his pelvis in 2016. In late 2020, he broke his knee and tore ligaments. He is rarely seen in public and only connects with his legions of fans via social media.  

Jamie Foxx has finally addressed his health woes in a shared video on Instagram where he revealed that he could return to work after he was hospitalised with an undisclosed illness in April. “I know a lot of people were waiting, wanting to hear updates, but to be honest with you I just didn’t want you to see me like that, man,” Foxx said, adding, “I didn’t want you to see me with tubes running out of me and trying to figure out if I was going to make it through.” In the video, which was posted early on Saturday morning, Foxx did not reveal his diagnosis but said that he “went to hell and back” and had to overcome “potholes” in his road to recovery. “But I’m coming back, and I’m able to work,” he said in the video. Foxx, 55, ended a period of relative silence and widespread speculation about his health that began after he experienced a “medical complication,” according to a now-deleted statement posted to Instagram by his daughter, Corinne Foxx. “Luckily, due to quick action and great care, he is already on his way to recovery,” according to the statement, which was posted on April 12th. Foxx said his family kept information about his condition “airtight” in the months after news of his hospitalisation spread, leading to heightened concern among fans and speculation online. In May, some media outlets were reporting that Foxx’s family had been “preparing for the worst.” His daughter, however, quickly dismissed those reports as false, adding that her father had been out of the hospital for weeks and had even been playing pickleball. In addressing rumours about his health that took root during his absence, the actor reminded the public that he is also a comic by mocking some of the outlandish theories. “Some people said I was blind, but as you can see the eyes are working,” Foxx said as he crossed his eyes. 

On This Day

• 1903 – The Ford Motor Company sells its first car.
• 1962 – Telstar relays the first publicly transmitted, live trans-Atlantic television program, featuring Walter Cronkite.
• 1982 – Actor Vic Morrow and two children are killed when a helicopter crashes onto them while shooting a scene from Twilight Zone: The Movie.
• 2012 – The Solar storm of 2012 was an unusually large coronal mass ejection that was emitted by the Sun which barely missed the Earth by nine days. If it hit, it would have caused up to US$2.6 trillion in damages to electrical equipment worldwide.

Deaths

• 1885 – Ulysses S. Grant, American general and politician, 18th President of the United States (b. 1822).
• 1948 – D. W. Griffith, American actor, director, producer, and screenwriter (b. 1875).
• 2002 – Leo McKern, Australian-English actor (b. 1920).
• 2011 – Amy Winehouse, English singer-songwriter (b. 1983).
• 2012 – Sally Ride, American physicist and astronaut (b. 1951).

Blue Zones

A man ‘cheated death’ for nearly 45 years after only being given 9 months after a cancer diagnosis and he said it’s all because he lives in a ‘blue zone’.

Stamatis Moraitis, 98, was told by doctors in 1976 that he only had six to nine months to live after receiving a lung cancer diagnosis.

After years of working and building a family in the US, Mr Moraitis made the decision to return back home to Ikaria, a small Island in the Aegean Sea, because a US funeral would be too expensive. He decided to return to his native island to ‘start drinking wine and wait for the day’ death came knocking on his door. 

After his return to Ikaria, months passed and Mr Moraitis felt he was getting stronger as time continued to pass. After passing the nine month marker, he realised he may have more life to live – and he was right. He lasted 45 years after his cancer diagnosis, passing away at the age of 98, although he contests the was 102, in 2013. He joked to the Flying Monkeys: ‘I’m no doctor but I think the wine helped.’ 

The small Greek island of Ikaria coined as the ‘island where people forget to die’, is also known as a ‘blue zone’, with residents on average living 10 years longer than the rest of Western Europe, one being Mr Moraitis who cheated death for decades. 

Mr Moraitis attributed his decades of survival to only consuming pure foods, herbs, wine, clean air and a life without stress. He even refused to drink commercial wine, bringing his own to places that didn’t hold local wine, because he claimed there where ‘too many preservatives’.

The Greek island isn’t the only ‘blue zone’ in the world, there are other locations where people statistically live longer.

However, research by the National Library of Medicine shows that a person’s life expectancy is largely down to the way they lead their lives, with only 20% of a person’s genetics contributing to their life expectancy.

Although people who live in ‘blue zones’ are living statistically longer and are less likely to have serious diseases in later life than others in the world, Healthline claims it’s because they have healthier diets as a result of the food produced in their locality which are ones doctors regularly recommend. 

I for one would love to live a stress-free life with good food and fine wine.

Last Week’s Birthdays

Daniel Radcliffe (34), Woody Harrelson (62), Kathryn Hahn (50), Charisma Carpenter (53), Ronny Cox (85), Slash (58), Willem Dafoe (68), Selena Gomez (31), Rhys Ifans (56), Danny Glover (77), Terence Stamp (85), Anya Chalotra (28), Josh Hartnett (45), Juno Temple (34), Ross Kemp (59), Paloma Faith (42), Dean Winters (59), John Francis Daley (38), Sandra Oh (52), Gisele Bündchen (43), Benedict Cumberbatch (47), Jared Padalecki (41), Ramin Djawadi (49), Kelly Reilly (46), Vin Diesel (56), Priyanka Chopra Jonas (41), Kristen Bell (43), James Brolin (83), Brett Goldstein (43), Donald Sutherland (88), Eric Winter (47), Alex Winter (58), and David Hasselhoff (71).