Dead Pool 26th September 2021

An odd week, the deaths seemed to be rolling in on the Telegram group, yet no points to award. Anyhow…. 

Look Who You Could Have Had:

In Other News

The television presenter Julia Bradbury has announced she has breast cancer, and urged other women to check their breasts and seek help if they notice any changes. The 51-year-old broadcaster will undergo a mastectomy in October to remove her left breast, along with its 6cm tumour. Surgeons will also take tissue from her lymph nodes to establish whether or not the disease has spread. Bradbury, who made her name presenting the BBC’s Countryfile, said she was going public in order to encourage others to get tested. “My plan is to come through it and out the other side and I hope to be able to do that bravely enough so that women who are scared to get tested, to get a diagnosis, go ahead. I want to be able to give them a wave and say: look, it’s horrible, but you can do it too.” She urged women not to ignore warning signs: “We must, must, must check ourselves and seek help. Being scared of a diagnosis could be the thing which kills you. So learn what to look for and check, check, check. Doctors are experts but only you can press a lump, know how it feels and think you should do something about it.” Doctors have told her the cancer cells are currently confined to her milk ducts and have not yet spread to the breast tissue. This means that, despite the significant size of the tumour, she may not need chemotherapy.  

Harry Potter star Tom Felton was carried off a golf course in Wisconsin during a Ryder Cup Celebrity Match on Thursday. Felton, 34, who is famous for playing Draco Malfoy in the popular Harry Potter franchise, suffered a ‘medical incident’ on the golf course, according to the PGA of America. A statement from the PGA of America said: “In today’s Ryder Cup Celebrity Match, actor and musician Tom Felton experienced a medical incident on the course while participating for Europe. He was transported to a local hospital for treatment. No further details are available.” Pictures show Felton looking shaken as he is helped to his feet by fellow players, volunteers and tournament officials.

Ed Sheeran, Coldplay and Snow Patrol are among leading figures in the music industry to pay tribute to music agent Steve Strange. The co-founder of X-Ray Touring, from Carrickfergus, in County Antrim, died following illness, aged 53. X-Ray Touring has the likes of Eminem, Erasure, Linkin Park, Kodaline, Queens of the Stone Age and Stereophonics on its books. “Steve was a titan of the global music industry,” Limelight Belfast said. The music venue described Mr Strange as “an unsung hero, and a fantastic and loyal friend to this venue and to Northern Ireland’s music community for more than 40 years”. Mr Strange started his music industry career at Limelight Belfast in the 1980s, according to the venue, before becoming an agent in London a few years later. Writing on Instagram, Grammy Award winning artist Ed Sheeran said it was “a very sad day, and a huge loss”. While Coldplay said it was “devastated” by the news of Mr Strange’s death. On Twitter, the band said it spent “a bittersweet hour” with Mr Strange last week. “Despite his illness he was still taking calls and watching ticket counts.” Rock band Snow Patrol said that their agent “believed in us before almost anyone else in the music industry did”. To picture a world without him in it is to picture a world so diminished. With less joy, less positivity, less optimism, less heart. Quieter, duller and much less interesting,” said the band. “So instead we’ll remember the joy he brought so many people and tell Steve Strange Stories.” Strangely enough, Strange does not have a Wiki page. 

On This Day

  • 1580 – Francis Drake finishes his circumnavigation of the Earth in Plymouth, England.  
  • 1905 – Albert Einstein publishes the third of his Annus Mirabilis papers, introducing the special theory of relativity.  
  • 1933 – As gangster Machine Gun Kelly surrenders to the FBI, he shouts out, “Don’t shoot, G-Men!”, which becomes a nickname for FBI agents.  
  • 1953 – Rationing of sugar in the United Kingdom ends. Due to start again in December 2021. 
  • 1959 – Typhoon Vera, the strongest typhoon to hit Japan in recorded history, makes landfall, killing 4,580 people and leaving nearly 1.6 million others homeless.
  • 1969 – Abbey Road, the last recorded album by the Beatles, is released.  
  • 1973 – Concorde makes its first non-stop crossing of the Atlantic in record-breaking time.

Deaths

  • 1902 – Levi Strauss, German-American businessman, founded Levi Strauss & Co. (b. 1829).  
  • 1937 – Bessie Smith, American singer and actress (b. 1894). 
  • 2003 – Robert Palmer, English singer-songwriter (b. 1949). 
  • 2008 – Paul Newman, American actor, director, producer, and businessman (b. 1925). 
  • 2019 – Jacques Chirac, French politician and President of France (b. 1932). 

Last Meals

Richard Glossip is an American prisoner currently on death row at Oklahoma State Penitentiary after being convicted of commissioning the 1997 murder of Barry Van Treese. Justin Sneed, the man who murdered Van Treese, agreed to plead guilty in exchange for testifying against Glossip, and received a sentence of life without parole. Glossip is the recipient of international attention due to the unusual nature of his conviction, for which there is little or no additional corroborating evidence. 

On January 7th, 1997, Justin Sneed beat Barry Van Treese to death gruesomely with a baseball bat. The killing occurred at the Best Budget Inn in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, where Van Treese was the owner, Sneed was the maintenance man, and Richard Glossip was the manager. In exchange for avoiding the death penalty, Sneed confessed and told police that Glossip had instructed him to commit the murder.  

Glossip insisted on his innocence and refused to accept a plea bargain. In July 1998, an Oklahoma jury convicted Glossip of the murder and sentenced him to death. In 2001, the unanimous Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals threw out that conviction, calling the case “extremely weak” and finding Glossip had received unconstitutionally ineffective assistance of counsel. 

In August 2004, a second Oklahoma jury convicted Glossip of the murder and sentenced him to death. Glossip complained that prosecutors had intimidated his defence attorney into resigning, but, in April 2007, the Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals affirmed the death sentence, with two judges in the majority, one judge specially concurring, and two judges dissenting. Glossip attracted the advocacy of Sister Helen Prejean, but failed to get the clemency board to consider letters from Sneed’s family, who believe Sneed is lying.  

Glossip’s legal team asserts that Justin Sneed was addicted to methamphetamine at the time that he murdered Van Treese, and that he habitually broke into vehicles in the parking lot of the Best Budget Inn while he was employed as a maintenance man. Glossip’s execution is controversial in that he was convicted almost entirely on the testimony of Sneed, who confessed to bludgeoning Van Treese to death with an aluminium baseball bat by himself and who was spared a death sentence himself by implicating Glossip.  

In September and October 2015, Glossip was granted three successive stays of execution due to questions about Oklahoma’s lethal injection drugs, which makes him the only man known to have had three last meals, possibly facing a fourth! 

For his three last meals, he’s had the same four items every time: fish and chips, a Wendy’s Baconator, a strawberry shake, and pizza — Pizza Hut once, Dominos twice. He’s also  listened as two men have been put to death, botched lethal injections both. And, as soon as early next year, he could be there again, in that endless daylight cell, waiting for death.

Glossip’s team are convinced they can prove his innocence. The problem is that Glossip was denied clemency in 2014, and inmates usually don’t get a second hearing. “I try to encourage people that there’s always hope,” says Glossip. “Look at me, I survived three executions.”

Last Week’s Birthdays

Jim Caviezel (53), Linda Hamilton (65), Olivia Newton-John (73), Lysette Anthony (58), Serena Williams (40), Ricky Tomlinson (82), Jon Richardson (39), Will Smith (53), Catherine Zeta-Jones (52), Mikael Persbrandt (58), Michael Douglas (77), Mark Hamill (70), Michael Madsen (64), Heather Locklear (60), Felicity Kendal (75), Kevin Sorbo (63), Sven-Ole Thorsen (77), Anthony Mackie (43), Rosalind Chao (64), Karl Pilkington (49), Bruce Springsteen (72), Tom Felton (34), Billie Piper (39), Sue Perkins (52), Ruth Jones (55), Joan Jett (63), Nick Cave (64), Bill Murray (71), Luke Wilson (50), Stephen King (74), David Wenham (56), Ricki Lake (53), Alfonso Ribeiro (50), Jon Bernthal (45), Kristen Johnston (54), Sophia Loren (87), Asia Argento (46), Moon Bloodgood (46), George R.R. Martin (73), Michelle Visage (53), and Connor Swindells (25).

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