Dead Pool 8th April 2018

Things are looking up, quite a few deaths this week, sadly no points though, so the league table remains static. A couple of unexpected deaths certainly lit up the mid-week email klaxons, keep them coming, maybe next year we should give out a prize for whoever gets the most klaxons in first! 

Look Who You Could Have Had:

  • Winnie Madikizela-Mandela, 81, South African anti-apartheid activist and politician, MP (since 2009), complications of diabetes.  
  • Ron Dunbar, 77, American songwriter (“Give Me Just a Little More Time”, “Band of Gold”, “Patches”), Grammy winner (1971).  
  • Soon-Tek Oh, 85, South Korean-American actor (The Man with the Golden Gun, Mulan, Hawaii 5-O), Alzheimer’s disease.  
  • Johnny Valiant, 71, American Hall of Fame professional wrestler (The Valiant Brothers) and manager (WWF, AWA), traffic collision.  
  • Ray Wilkins, 61, English football player (Chelsea, Manchester United) and manager (Queens Park Rangers), cardiac arrest.  
  • Eric Bristow, 60, English Hall of Fame darts player, world champion (1980, 1981, 1984, 1985, 1986), heart attack.  
  • Isao Takahata, 82, Japanese film director, producer and screenwriter (Grave of the Fireflies, Only Yesterday, The Tale of the Princess Kaguya), lung cancer.

In Other News

The Duke of Edinburgh is “comfortable and in good spirits” after a successful hip replacement operation, Buckingham Palace has said. Prince Philip is said to be “progressing satisfactorily at this early stage” after surgery at the King Edward VII’s Hospital in London. He is expected to remain in the private hospital for several days. The 96-year-old retired from royal duties last August, after decades spent supporting the Queen. BBC royal correspondent Jonny Dymond said the duke was an “intensely private man” and even at the best of times, the palace would not provide a running commentary. His condition came to light after his absence from the Easter service at Windsor was attributed to a hip problem. The Queen, who is at Windsor Castle for the traditional Easter Court, is being kept up-to-date on the duke’s condition.   

The former Conservative health secretary, Lord Lansley, has revealed he is being treated for bowel cancer. Writing in the Daily Telegraph, he said he was having chemotherapy after being diagnosed nine months ago but had “every reason to hope” he will recover. Lord Lansley told the paper he was “lucky” to have been diagnosed early and that the stage 3 tumours had not spread to his liver. He said he went to his GP after “much nagging” from his wife with spreading back pain. The 61-year-old also revealed he had had a seven-hour operation on his bowel. As health secretary between 2010 and 2012, he put forward a bowelscope screening to test for cancer from the age of 55 which he meant to roll out nationally in England by the end of 2016. Lord Lansley said he would have been been called up automatically if the scheme had been fully implemented. 

Just when you thought it was safe to go out and have sex again after the government told us AIDS would kill you dead! A man in the UK has caught the world’s “worst-ever” case of super-gonorrhoea. He had a regular partner in the UK, but picked up the superbug after a sexual encounter with a woman in South East Asia. Public Health England says it is the first time the infection cannot be cured with first choice antibiotics. Health officials are now tracing any other sexual partners of the man, who has not been identified, in an attempt to contain the infection’s spread. The main antibiotic treatment – a combination of azithromycin and ceftriaxone – has failed to treat the disease. Dr Gwenda Hughes, from Public Health England, said: “This is the first time a case has displayed such high-level resistance to both of these drugs and to most other commonly used antibiotics.” Analysis of the man’s infection suggests one last antibiotic could work. He is currently being treated and doctors will see if it has been successful next month. So far no other cases – including in the British partner – have been discovered, but the investigation is still under way. 

On This Day

  • 1820 – The Venus de Milo is discovered on the Aegean island of Milos. 
  • 1961 – A large explosion on board the MV Dara in the Persian Gulf kills 238.  
  • 1970 – Bahr El-Baqar primary school bombing: Israeli bombers strike an Egyptian school. Forty-six children are killed.

Deaths

  • 1973 – Pablo Picasso, Spanish painter and sculptor (b. 1881)  
  • 2010 – Malcolm McLaren, English singer-songwriter (b. 1946)  
  • 2013 – Margaret Thatcher, English lawyer and politician, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom (b. 1925)

Last Week’s Birthdays

Russell Crowe (54), Jackie Chan (64), Francis Ford Coppola (79), Zach Braff (43), Paul Rudd (49), John Ratzenberger (71), Billy Dee Williams (81), Lily James (29), Mitch Pileggi (66), Jane Asher (72), Pharrell Williams (45), Robert Downey Jr. (53), Hugo Weaving (58), Xenia Seeberg (46), Graham Norton (55), Eddie Murphy (57), Alec Baldwin (60), Amanda Bynes (32), Paris Jackson (20), Michael Fassbender (41), Pedro Pascal (43), Clark Gregg (56), Linda Hunt (73), Penelope Keith (78), and John Thomson (49). 

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