Dead Pool 2nd January 2025

Again I have to dole out the points! Congratulations to Neil G for correctly guessing that Catherine Laborde would pass away this year, 177 points as he also listed her as his Woman. I can also award Shân EW 72 points for Marianne Faithful, who also passed away last week. Well done both of you!

I’ll be closing the donations page in the next few days, if anyone else would like to donate this year, please do so soon. Thank you to everyone who has generously donated this year, although we didn’t cover the costs this year, it certainly helped immensely.

Look Who You Could Have Had:

Ken Flores, 28, American comedian.
John Erwin, 88, American voice actor (He-Man and the Masters of the Universe, She-Ra: Princess of Power).
Catherine Laborde, 73, French weather presenter and author, dementia with Lewy bodies
Michael Baggott, 51, British antiques dealer and TV personality (Flog It!), heart attack.
Sir Julius Chan, 85, Papua New Guinean politician.
Marianne Faithfull, 78, English singer (“As Tears Go By“), songwriter (“Broken English“) and actress (The Girl on a Motorcycle).

In Other News

Pope Francis tripped when the handle of his walking stick snapped entering the Vatican auditorium for an audience Saturday. The 88-year-old pope often has to use a wheelchair or a cane because of bad knees and has fallen twice in the past two months. After Saturday’s slight stumble, two aides helped him to his chair on the stage and the audience proceeded without incident. After he recovered someone in the audience shouted “Viva il Papa” and the audience applauded. Earlier in January, Francis fell and hurt his right arm. It wasn’t broken, but a sling was put on as a precaution. On December 7th, the pope whacked his chin on his nightstand in an apparent fall that resulted in a bad bruise. The pontiff has long battled health problems including long bouts of bronchitis. He uses a walker or cane when moving around his apartment in the Vatican’s Santa Marta hotel. Speculation about Francis’ health is a constant in Vatican circles, especially after Pope Benedict XVI broke 600 years of tradition and resigned from the papacy in 2013. Benedict’s aides have attributed the decision to a nighttime fall that he suffered during a 2012 trip to Mexico, after which he determined he couldn’t keep up with the globe-trotting demands of the papacy. Francis has said that he has no plans to resign anytime soon, even if Benedict “opened the door” to the possibility. In his autobiography “Hope” released this month, Francis said that he hadn’t considered resigning even when he had major intestinal surgery.

Giles Coren has been diagnosed with prostate cancer. Coren, 55, said urology nurses had taken a biopsy before informing him they had found “some cancer” but that “no treatment would be necessary for the moment”. “In the very week that it was announced on the front page of The Times that prostate cancer is now the commonest cancer in England … I have been diagnosed with it!” he wrote in his column for the paper. Earlier in the week charity Prostate Cancer UK said diagnoses of the disease had overtaken breast cancer in 2022 and 2023, making it England’s most common cancer. TV star and writer Coren, who is the brother of Only Connect presenter Victoria Coren Mitchell, said his “delightful journey started a couple of years ago”. “I had to demand, literally demand, a prostate specific antigen (PSA) test along with my annual cholesterol check, because not only is it not mandatory on the NHS but your GP is not even allowed to suggest it unless you have symptoms,” he claimed. Coren said the test “came back a bit high” and revealed he had only asked for it because of the work done by celebrities including Stephen Fry, the late Bill Turnbull – and more recently Sir Chris Hoy, who revealed his prostate cancer was terminal in 2024.

Patti Smith is assuring fans that she is “absolutely fine” after a “small incident” onstage while performing in Brazil. The rocker, 78, seemingly collapsed onstage in Sao Paulo on Wednesday, while performing with the Soundwalk Collective group, and was helped offstage before returning briefly in a wheelchair. In a statement shared to Instagram the next day, Smith said she’d been dealing with the effects of a migraine, and that various accounts of what happened had been “grossly exaggerated.” “This is me letting everyone know that I am fine,” she wrote alongside a selfie that featured her smiling for and waving to the camera. “I had some post migraine dizziness. Had a small incident, left the stage, and returned 10 minutes later and talked to the people, told them I was fine and sang them Wing and Because the Night.” Smith said she’d been checked out by an “excellent doctor” and was doing well. “Please do not accept any other story. With all the strife in the world, this explainable incident does not merit so much attention,” she wrote. “Thank you everyone for your concern. Trust me I am fine.” The “Because the Night” singer fell about 30 minutes into her performance, and remained there for several minutes before she received assistance. Journalist Micheline Alves told the Flying Monkeys that Smith seemingly tried to support herself by holding her microphone or music stand, but “everything fell on top of her.” She remained conscious, and was able to stand on her own, Alves said.

On This Day

1709 – Alexander Selkirk is rescued after being shipwrecked on a desert island, inspiring Daniel Defoe’s adventure book Robinson Crusoe.
1887 – In Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania, the first Groundhog Day is observed.
1901 – Funeral of Queen Victoria.

Deaths

1907 – Dmitri Mendeleev, Russian chemist and academic (b. 1834).
1969 – Boris Karloff, English actor (b. 1887).
1970 – Bertrand Russell, English mathematician, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1872).
1979 – Sid Vicious, English singer and bass player (b. 1957).
1995 – Fred Perry, English tennis player (b. 1909).
1995 – Donald Pleasence, English-French actor (b. 1919).
1996 – Gene Kelly, American actor, singer, dancer, and director (b. 1912).
2014 – Philip Seymour Hoffman, American actor, director, and producer (b. 1967).
2021 – Captain Sir Tom Moore, British Army officer and charity campaigner (b. 1920).
2024 – Carl Weathers, American football player and actor (b. 1948).