Dead Pool 7th September 2025

Let’s begin this week’s newsletter by awarding some points! With the passing of Joe Bugner, Mark W. Scores 75 points! Well done that man! The Flying Monkeys were quite successful this week, I think we shall leave them out for another week.

Look Who You Could Have Had:

Joe Bugner, 75, Hungarian-born British-Australian European heavyweight champion boxer and actor (I’m for the Hippopotamus, Street Fighter).
Graham Greene, 73, Canadian actor (Dances With Wolves, Die Hard with a Vengeance, The Green Mile).
David Warburton, 59, British politician
Giorgio Armani, 91, Italian fashion designer, founder of Armani.
Katharine, Duchess of Kent, 92, British royal.
Maru, 18, Japanese Internet cat, lung cancer.

In Other News

Former US President Joe Biden recently underwent skin cancer surgery, his spokeswoman said. Biden had Mohs surgery, she told the Flying Monkeys, but did not immediately provide further details. The procedure is used to cut away skin until no evidence of cancer remains. The 82-year-old had been spotted with a wound on the right side of his head in recent days. In 2023, Biden had a cancerous skin lesion removed from his chest during a routine health screening. In May, he was diagnosed with an aggressive form of prostate cancer that has spread to his bones. “Cancer touches us all,” Biden wrote on social media at the time. “Like so many of you, Jill and I have learned that we are strongest in the broken places. Biden also had several non-melanoma skin cancers removed in the past, before he became president. He has largely retreated from the public eye since leaving the White House in January and has made few public appearances. The Bidens have long been strong advocates for fighting and curing cancer. Their adult son, Beau, died in 2015 from brain cancer.

It has been a decade since legendary actor Alan Alda was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease, and to his credit he is still acting after it at 90. And recently, the iconic “M*A*S*H” star revealed what really fuels him in an interview with the Flying Monkeys. “I think the main thing that keeps me alive is laughing,” Alda said. “When something goes wrong, I often see it as funny. Take my Parkinson’s. (Please). The night I accidentally fell into the dishwasher, I reassured our dinner guests by telling them, ‘I’m fine. It was only on rinse cycle.’ Fortunately, when you’re old, pretty much any bizarre thing you say gets a laugh.” And true to that form, Alda recently updated how he was doing in his health battle, telling the Flying Monkeys that he was “making progress.” “I didn’t say in which direction,” he joked. Alda also has prosopagnosia, a condition which is known as face blindness. The outlet said it makes it hard for Alda to recognise people. Alda said the issues cause him to face new puzzles that he has to solve each day. “It’s a little like a game,” he said. “I’ve found whatever the little problem is, if I keep at it, I can eventually solve it, and then I feel like a million bucks. It’s a way to have a good time under poor circumstances.” Sadly, he said that dealing with Parkinson’s has gone from a part-time job to a full-time one. “But it keeps me always looking for the funny side,” he said. Along with laughing, Alda has also found things he is passionate in, such as his current podcast. “To go a little deeper with your question about being productive while being old, I think a few embers still have to be glowing,” he said. “A passionate interest in something you haven’t yet followed up on. I’ve always been interested in how many people relate and communicate,” he added. “And now I’m spending most of my time exploring that on my podcast. But I think it’s important to follow a passion even if it doesn’t deliver the same status hits you’ve had in the past.”

President Donald Trump put to rest rumours he was dying or near death with a post on Truth Social last Sunday. Trump, 79, replied to another user by writing, “NEVER FELT BETTER IN MY LIFE. Also, DC IS A CRIME FREE ZONE! President DJT.” The original post called out the alleged hypocrisy of covering former President Joe Biden and Trump, saying it was a “comical double standard.” “Joe Biden would go multiple days at a time without any public appearances and the media would say he’s “sharp” and ‘top of his game,’” the user wrote. “Meanwhile he was wearing diapers and napping. President Trump puts in more public work hours than any other POTUS in US history and media freaks out if he disappears for 24 hours,” the poster added. “Comical double standard.” Speculation surrounding Trump’s health started around the time journalist Laura Rozen wrote about Trump’s weekend schedule. “Trump has no public events scheduled all weekend. Don’t believe he was seen today either,” Rozen wrote. She also posted the official White House schedule that said “no public events scheduled” for the extended weekend period. Rozen later wrote, “An observation that he has not been seen publicly since Tuesday and has no public events on his public schedule thru the long weekend has set off a deluge. but that was not my intention.” On Friday, Trump gave an interview with “Daily Caller” White House correspondent Reagan Reese. Reese was surprised by the rumours of Trump’s health. “I wake up to see people freaking out that Trump’s sick or dead or something because he hasn’t been seen in a few days,” Reese said. “I was with the president yesterday afternoon. I interviewed him for an hour. More details on our conversation to come today and through the weekend. We talked about everything. He was lively and chatty. It’s a great interview.” Concerns over Trump’s health do have some merit as he has been seen with bruising on his hand. The White House said last month that Trump suffered from “chronic venous insufficiency,” which also caused swelling in his ankles. However, press secretary Karoline Leavitt said the bruising was a result of vigorous hand-shaking. “Importantly, there was no evidence of deep vein thrombosis or arterial disease,” she added about when Trump was checked by his doctor. Some medical professionals and cable pundits have speculated that there is an issue with Trump’s health — including possible congestive heart failure. Vice President JD Vance spoke of his preparedness if he were to become president. “Yes, things can always happen. Yes, terrible tragedies happen,” Vance said. “But I feel very confident the president of the United States is in good shape, is gonna serve out the remainder of his term, and do great things for the American people, and if, God forbid, there’s a terrible tragedy, I can’t think of better on-the-job training than what I’ve gotten over the last 200 days.”

On This Day

1909 – Eugène Lefebvre crashes a new biplane during a test flight at Port-Aviation, south of Paris, becoming the first aviator in the world to lose his life piloting a powered heavier-than-air craft.
1936 – The last thylacine, a carnivorous marsupial, dies alone in its cage at the Hobart Zoo in Tasmania.
1978 – While walking across Waterloo Bridge in London, Bulgarian dissident Georgi Markov is assassinated by Bulgarian secret police agent Francesco Gullino by means of a ricin pellet fired from a specially designed umbrella.

Deaths