Dead Pool 6th March 2016

What’s all this? Points you say?? Indeed, there are points to be awarded with the sad demise of some cricket player we’ve never heard of at a youngish age. Laura, Paul, Liz and Wombat all score 97, however Lee scores 197 as he had him down as his Cert. Well done all, you’ve certainly shaken up the league table.

Look Who You Could Have Had:

• Antony Gibbs, 90, British film editor (Tom Jones, Fiddler on the Roof, Dune).
• George Kennedy, 91, American actor (Cool Hand Luke, The Naked Gun, Airport), Oscar winner (1968), heart disease.
• Alice Arlen, 75, American screenwriter (Silkwood, The Weight of Water).
• Gil Hill, 84, American police officer, actor (Beverly Hills Cop) and politician (Detroit City Council), pneumonia.
• Lee Reherman, 49, American actor (American Gladiators, Star Trek Into Darkness, Last Action Hero).
• Louise Rennison, 64, British author (Angus, Thongs and Full-Frontal Snogging).
• Jim Kimsey, 76, American technology executive, co-founder and CEO of AOL, melanoma.
• Tony Warren, 79, English television screenwriter and producer (Coronation Street).
• Martin Crowe, 53, New Zealand cricketer (national team), lymphoma.
• Tony Dyson, 68, British film prop designer (R2-D2).
• Sarah Tait, 33, Australian rower, world champion (2005), Olympic silver medalist (2012), cervical cancer.
• Pat Conroy, 70, American author (The Prince of Tides, The Great Santini, The Lords of Discipline), pancreatic cancer.
• Joey Feek, 40, American country singer (Joey + Rory), cervical cancer.

In Other News 

Paul Daniels has left hospital to spend his “final days” at home after being diagnosed with terminal brain cancer, his son has revealed. The entertainer is sticking to his belief that when “it’s your time it’s your time” as he spends his last days at home surrounded by his family, Martin Daniels told the Sunday Mirror. The 77-year-old fell at home and was taken to hospital suspected of suffering a stroke, although he was later diagnosed with an inoperable brain tumour, his son said. “There’s no treatment which can help him. Doctors haven’t said how many weeks or months he might have – and we haven’t asked. “He knows things are not in his hands now and we are living in the knowledge every day is a bonus. It is unbearably difficult. He has said before when ‘it’s your time it’s your time’ and that’s how he is trying to face up to things.” Daniels, who is said to be “lucid”, was at his Thames-side home surrounded by his family, said his son, adding that the support of his fans had given them “tremendous strength at what is a very difficult time”.

For those of you vaguely interested in that game called soccer, the Fourth official Kevin Friend collapsed and hit his head on a dugout during Tuesday’s Premier League game between Bournemouth and Southampton. Friend, who cut his face, was treated in the tunnel before being taken to hospital, where he stayed overnight. The incident happened as the first half came to an end at the Vitality Stadium. The start of the second half was delayed by five minutes as Friend was replaced by Dean Treleaven, a qualified referee who was watching the match. “I was on the bench and he came to us and he fell against the dugout, with his nose, and then fell to the ground,” said Saints boss Ronald Koeman. “For maybe five seconds, he was out of everything.” Bournemouth manager Eddie Howe, whose side won 2-0, added: “I saw him collapse. I saw him very dazed and shaken.” Didn’t ask if he was ok though…

Pauline Cafferkey, the Scottish nurse who contracted Ebola in Sierra Leone in 2014, has been discharged from hospital after she was cleared of any complication related to the virus. She was admitted to the Royal Free hospital in Hampstead, north London, last week for the third time after developing a complication related to her previous infection. With relief and delight among her care team, I bet they didn’t want to catch her germs, she was discharged on Sunday and was expected to be on her way back home to Scotland, much to the horror of all kilt-wearing Brits! In a statement the hospital said that the public should not in any way be concerned about the spread of the virus because of the late complication. “We can confirm that Pauline is not infectious. The Ebola virus can only be transmitted by direct contact with the blood or bodily fluids of an infected person while they are symptomatic,” the hospital said. “So don’t get anywhere near Ebola Pauline, and don’t fuck her for fuck sake!” Cafferkey contracted Ebola while working for the Save the Children emergency treatment centre outside Freetown in Sierra Leone in December 2014. Since then she’s been a pain in the arse for the NHS and all who have to pay for her treatment.

Media mogul Rupert Murdoch has married actress-model Jerry Hall in London. This is Mr Murdoch’s fourth marriage and the first for Miss Hall, 59, after her 1992 Bali wedding to Sir Mick Jagger was later deemed legally void. Australian-born Mr Murdoch, 84, who now has US nationality, tweeted he was “the luckiest and happiest man in world”. The rest of the world laughed and saw the marriage for what it is, Hall looking to make a few billion quickly. The pair held a private ceremony of celebration on Saturday at London’s St Bride’s Church, in Fleet Street, which proclaims itself as the “spiritual home of the media”, or as we know it, “The Bed of Political Lies!” Mr Murdoch, whose family control 120 newspapers in five countries, split up with his third wife Wendi Deng in 2013 and is reportedly worth £7.7bn, making him the 77th richest person on the planet. Jerry Hall on the other hand has scraped a fortune of £7 million with her failed modelling career and association with Mick Jagger. Let’s see how long Murdoch lasts before he sips that poisoned tea!

On This Day

• 1521 – Ferdinand Magellan arrives at Guam.
• 1836 – Texas Revolution: Battle of the Alamo – After a thirteen-day siege by an army of 3,000 Mexican troops, the 187 Texas volunteers, including frontiersman Davy Crockett and colonel Jim Bowie, defending the Alamo are killed and the fort is captured.
• 1869 – Dmitri Mendeleev presents the first periodic table to the Russian Chemical Society.
• 1899 – Bayer registers “Aspirin” as a trademark.
• 1912 – Italian forces become the first to use airships in war, as two dirigibles drop bombs on Turkish troops encamped at Janzur, from an altitude of 6,000 feet.
• 1964 – Nation of Islam leader Elijah Muhammad officially gives boxing champion Cassius Clay the name Muhammad Ali.
• 1987 – The British ferry MS Herald of Free Enterprise capsizes in about 90 seconds killing 193.

Deaths

• 1888 – Louisa May Alcott, American novelist and poet (b. 1832)
• 1941 – Gutzon Borglum, Danish-American sculptor, designed Mount Rushmore (b. 1867)
• 1961 – George Formby, English actor, singer-songwriter and comedian (b. 1904)
• 1982 – Ayn Rand, Russian-American philosopher, author, and playwright (b. 1905)
• 2000 – John Colicos, Canadian actor (b. 1928)

Last Week’s Birthdays

John Turturro (59),  Roger Daltrey (62), Ron Howard (62), Justin Bieber (22), Javier Bardem (47), Harry Belafonte (89), Daniel Craig (48), Bryce Dallas Howard (35), Jon Bon Jovi (54), Chris Martin (39), Miranda Richardson (58), Julie Bowen (46), Patsy Kensit (48) and Penn Jillette (61).

The Last Word

Go away. I’m all right. – H. G. Wells, novelist, d. 1946

Next week peeps!