Afternoon all, sorry for the epic size of this week’s edition of the newsletter, it seems I didn’t know when to stop. So make a cup of tea, sit down and relax, this one might take a while to read.

Look Who You Could Have Had:

• Coleen Gray, 92, American actress (Nightmare Alley, Kiss of Death, The Killing).
• Giovanni Riggi, 90, American mobster, inspiration for The Sopranos.
• Arnold Scaasi, 85, Canadian fashion designer.
• Les Munro, 96, New Zealand pilot, last surviving pilot of Operation Chastise.
• George Cole, 90, English actor (Minder, St Trinian’s, Mary Reilly).
• Terrence Evans, 81, American actor (Terminator 2: Judgment Day, Star Trek, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre).
• Neville Neville, 65, English cricketer and football club director (Bury F.C.).
• Sean Price, 43, American rapper (Heltah Skeltah, Boot Camp Clik).

In Other News

Cilla Black was ailing and “willed herself to die”, according to a long-time friend. Childhood friend Terry McCann said Black told him she knew she was going to die and her beloved late husband Bobby Willis was “waiting for me”. “I wasn’t surprised when I found out she had died,” he told BBC News. “The last thing she said to me was she was going blind, she showed me her hands, she had arthritis,” he said. “She willed herself to die. She said, ‘Bobby’s waiting for me.’ “She just said, ‘Look at me, I’m a wreck.’ I was trying to cheer her up. She knew something we didn’t. The singer and TV star died of a stroke after falling over at her Spanish home on Saturday last week. The 72-year-old was sunbathing at her villa in Estepona when she stood up, lost her balance and fell, hitting her head, which knocked her unconscious and caused a stroke. Her body has now been flown back to the UK, but no details of Black’s funeral have yet been made public.

The British band Supertramp have announced the cancellation of their European  concert tour, due to start in November, because of an “aggressive” cancer treatment co-founder and vocalist Rick Davies is undergoing. The group, famous for 1970s and 80s hits such as Bloody Well Right, Dreamer, The Logical Song and It’s Raining Again, had been planning to take their Supertramp Forever tour through 25 European cities over five weeks. But in a statement they said the concerts “have been cancelled due to health issues affecting the band’s founder, Rick Davies”. Davies, 71, has been diagnosed with multiple myeloma – a cancer concentrated in bone marrow that affects white blood cells – “and has begun aggressive treatment to combat the disease,” they said. Davies, who also plays keyboards, is the only original member of the band after co-founder Roger Hodgson departed in 1983 to pursue a solo career.

Former Pakistan cricket captain Wasim Akram’s car has been fired at in Karachi, the country’s commercial capital, police say. The shooting took place near the National Stadium in Karachi’s Karsaz area on Wednesday, reports said. The ex-bowler was not hurt in the attack. Police said the incident appeared to be a case of road rage. Gun violence is not uncommon in Karachi, with much of it linked to militant groups. Wasim told the Express News channel: “A car hit mine, I stopped him and then his guy stepped out and fired at my car.” The cricket legend, who retired in 2003, is massively popular in Pakistan. Many in Pakistan, including politician and former cricketer Imran Khan, were quick to condemn the attack and express relief that Wasim was unhurt.

French police are investigating whether anaesthetic gas was used during a burglary on Formula One driver Jenson Button and his wife Jessica in a rented villa on the French Riviera. Two men, who stole jewellery reportedly worth £300,000, including an engagement ring, may have pumped gas through the air conditioning system before the break-in on Monday in St Tropez where the couple were holidaying with friends, the racing driver’s spokesman claimed. Personally I’m finding it hard to sympathise with them, it would take me nearly 20 years to earn £300k, and they spent it on sparkly things they took on holiday.

A jury in the US state of Colorado has spared gunman James Holmes the death penalty for killing 12 people at a screening of a Batman film in 2012. He will serve life in jail without the possibility of parole. I’m sure if he was black, he’d been straight on Death Row. The defence team had argued that the former neuroscience graduate student, now 27, was insane at the time. The jury agreed with prosecutors that Holmes, though mentally ill, was responsible for his actions. But it was not unanimous on the death penalty. That lack of agreement meant the jury accepted he would receive an automatic life sentence without parole. District Attorney George Brauchler said: “I still think death is justice for what that guy did, but the system said otherwise. I honour that, and I’ll respect that outcome.” Let’s hope that the same system will see the guy shanked in the goolies, nobody likes people who disturb a film in a cinema…

And finally, a woman who has just celebrated her 110th birthday says she has a daily dose of three beers and a shot of whisky to thank for her astonishing longevity. Agnes Fenton, from New Jersey, turned 110 on Saturday and is now among the small group of supercentenarian around the world. For nearly seventy years she has knocked back three Miller High Lifes and a shot of scotch every day, following the advice of a doctor who treated her for a benign tumour back in the 1930s. Her whisky of choice is Johnnie Walker Blue Label, which costs up to $150 (£96) per bottle. However, Ms Fenton has now been urged to abandon her daily tonic as she eats so little that her carers fear she can no longer handle alcohol. Ms Fenton is in remarkably good shape for a 110-year-old and is yet to have lost her hearing or eyesight. She spends her days reading the newspaper, listening to the radio, praying and enjoying plenty of naps. Amen to that!

On This Day

• 1173 – Construction of the campanile of the Cathedral of Pisa (now known as the Leaning Tower of Pisa) begins; it will take two centuries to complete.
• 1483 – Opening of the Sistine Chapel in Rome with the celebration of a Mass.
• 1892 – Thomas Edison receives a patent for a two-way telegraph.
• 1907 – The first Boy Scout encampment concludes at Brownsea Island in southern England, many young boys bottoms were never the same again.
• 1930 – Betty Boop makes her cartoon debut in Dizzy Dishes.
• 1945 – World War II: Nagasaki is devastated when an atomic bomb, Fat Man, is dropped by the United States B-29 Bockscar. 35,000 people are killed outright, including 23,200-28,200 Japanese war workers, 2,000 Korean forced workers, and 150 Japanese soldiers.
• 1965 – Singapore is expelled from Malaysia and becomes the only country to date to gain independence unwillingly.
• 1969 – Followers led by Charles Manson murder pregnant actress Sharon Tate (wife of Roman Polanski), coffee heiress Abigail Folger, Polish actor Wojciech Frykowski, men’s hairstylist Jay Sebring and recent high-school graduate Steven Parent.
• 1974 – As a direct result of the Watergate scandal, Richard Nixon becomes the first President of the United States to resign from office. His Vice President, Gerald Ford, becomes president.

Deaths

• 1948 – Hugo Boss, German fashion designer, founded Hugo Boss (b. 1885)
• 1969 – Sharon Tate, American actress (b. 1943)
• 1996 – Frank Whittle, English soldier and engineer, invented the jet engine (b. 1907)
• 2008 – Bernie Mac, American comedian, actor, screenwriter, and producer (b. 1957)

Why do wrestlers so often die young?  By David Rhodes BBC World Service

Mr Perfect, The Ultimate Warrior and “Rowdy” Roddy Piper may sound like names from a comic book, but the cognoscenti will recognise them as former superstars of the world of professional wrestling. All of them also died unexpectedly and at a relatively young age.

Mr Perfect died in 2003 of acute cocaine intoxication at the age of 44. The Ultimate Warrior died last year of a heart attack, aged 54. Most recent to go was “Rowdy” Roddy Piper who died suddenly on 31 July of a heart attack. He was 61.

So do former wrestlers die younger than athletes who take part in other sports?

“Yes the statistical evidence is quite strong when we look at the mortality rate for wrestlers compared to other sports and the general population,” says John Moriarty of Manchester University.

Researchers like Moriarty face some difficulties getting hold of data, as no official body collects statistics about the deaths of those who have spent a career in the ring. His approach has been to aggregate the findings of others who have studied the problem. He points to research by academics at the University of Eastern Michigan who studied a group of 557 former wrestlers.

Of the 62 wrestlers in this group who died between 1985 and 2011, 49 died before the age of 50. Furthermore, 24 of the 49 died  before the age of 40, and two even died before the age of 30. Mortality rates for wrestlers aged between 45 and 54 were 2.9 times greater than the rate for men in the wider US population, the study found. Cardiovascular disease was the most common cause of death.

But how does this compare with other American sports?

In 2014 Benjamin Morris investigated this for the statistical blog FiveThirtyEight, looking at a group of wrestlers whose careers had ended in 1998 or earlier. He found that 20% of those who in 2010 would have been aged between 50 and 55 had died, compared with just 4% of former American footballers of a similar age. Both activities involve their competitors exposing themselves to physical harm, and the training regimes for both wrestling and American football are punishing. But New York-based wrestling journalist Eric Cohen points to two important differences. “There is no off season in pro-wrestling. American footballers play, what, 16 a games a season? And then get half a year off. Wrestlers can be in the ring five to six times a week,” he says. The other difference concerns the activities  outside the ring and off the field.

“Wrestlers who competed in the 1970s and 80s were also living and partying like rock stars,” Cohen says. “In the past the business has had a lot of issues with its stars abusing steroids and recreational drugs.” Piper admitted taking steroids and cocaine, and drinking heavily while competing as a wrestler. The WWE (World Wrestling Entertainment Inc.) accepts that the culture of some of its former employees contributed to the problems they experienced in later life.

“Unfortunately, some past performers were part of a generation of wrestlers who made unhealthy and poor personal lifestyle choices, which in some cases continued beyond their years in the ring,” a spokesman said in a statement.

“Today’s athletes take great pride and personal responsibility for their overall health and well-being.

“Notwithstanding, WWE talent are subject to random drug testing and expected to live healthy lifestyles, reinforced through our Talent Wellness Program, which was instituted in 2006.”

Cohen believes things are broadly are getting better.

“Thankfully we don’t have nearly as many wrestlers in their 20s or 30s dying any more,” he says. “But as crazy as this may sound there was an incident in Mexico recently where a wrestler died in the ring.”

The hope among wrestling fans is that today’s crop of superstars will live longer than their predecessors.But the deaths of Roddy Piper and others serve as dark reminders of the journey that professional wrestling has been on.

Last Week’s Birthdays

Charlize Theron (40), Barak Obama (54), Loni Anderson (70), Dustin Hoffman (78), Martin Sheen (75), Martha Stewart (74), Tony Bennett (89), David Duchovny (55), Billy Bob Thornton (60), Geri Halliwell (43), Sam Worthington (39), Edward Furlong (38), The Edge (54), Roger Federer (34), Princess Beatrice (27), Abbie Cornish (33), Kevin Smith (45), John Landis (65), Evangeline Lilly (36), M. Night Shyamalan (45), Michelle Yeoh (53), Michael Shannon (41), Tobin Bell (73), Barbara Windsor (78) and Mark Strong (52).

Next Week peeps!

Welcome all, we have a lorra lorra stuff to get through today, so get your reading glasses on. Yes, it was a huge Surprise! Surprise! to find out that Cilla Black has passed away, but even more so because John had her listed! 78 points awarded!

The last week really has been a week of shocking deaths, some very unexpected indeed and at too young an age. Shame we don’t have access to the future, a fuckload of points have just gone to the ether!

Look Who You Could Have Had:

• Bobbi Kristina Brown, 22, American media personality and singer.
• Sir Peter O’Sullevan, 97, Irish-born British horse racing commentator, cancer.
• Lynn Anderson, 67, American country singer (“Rose Garden“), heart attack.
• Stuart Baggs, 27, Manx reality television contestant and businessman (The Apprentice).
• Roddy Piper, 61, Canadian professional wrestler (WWE, NWA, WCW); Hall of Fame (2005, 2007) and actor (They Live, Hell Comes to Frogtown, Body Slam), heart attack.
• Cilla Black, 72, British singer, television presenter and actress.

In Other News 

Joe Jackson, the father of late singer Michael Jackson, has suffered a stroke. The Albert Einstein hospital in Sao Paulo said Jackson, 87, was admitted on Sunday afternoon and is being treated in the intensive care unit. A statement from the hospital also said he was suffering from an irregular heartbeat. Apparently he was in Brazil to celebrate his 87th birthday, but he missed his own party due to being in hospital.

Saif al-Islam Gaddafi, the son of Libya’s former dictator, Muammar Gaddafi, has been sentenced to death by a court in Tripoli. Saif, once seen as  his father’s heir apparent, was condemned to death along with eight other figures from the former dictatorship, including the former intelligence chief Abdullah al-Senussi and Gaddafi’s last prime minister, Al-Baghdadi Ali al-Mahmoudi. There is uncertainty about whether the sentence will be carried out, as Gaddafi is being held by a militia in the mountain town of Zintan that is opposed to Libya Dawn, the militia coalition in control of Tripoli. Yes, you can list him next year, these death sentences can take forever to be upheld so you might have a long wait.

South Africa’s Archbishop Desmond Tutu has returned to hospital just a week after being discharged. He has what has only been described as a “persistent infection” which his foundation says is unrelated to the prostate cancer he has had for 15 years. Tutu was first hospitalised by the infection on 14th July. The 83-year-old Nobel peace laureate also continues to battle prostate cancer, first diagnosed 15 years ago, but his foundation said the current infection was unrelated. The foundation said the veteran rights campaigner would undergo bed rest while his doctors determine further treatment, and remain in the hospital at least for the weekend. Tutu survived an illness believed to be polio as a baby, and battled tuberculosis as a teenager. He has been in and out of hospital for minor complaints since 2011.

And now on to Cecil the Lion. One would believe that Walter Palmer, the dentist that shot the lion with an bow and arrow, missing his mark so the lion escaped for 40 hours until shot by a marksman in his hunting group, is on plenty of death lists by now. Having paid $50k for the ‘privilege’ of killing a lion, Palmer is now in hiding and his dental practice has closed down. Sadly, court records have shown that Mr Palmer has a felony record in the US after killing a black bear in the state of Wisconsin in 2006. The dentist was given a one-year probation and fined $3,000, having shot the creature outside an authorised zone and then tried to pass it off as having been killed elsewhere, so this is not the first time he’s tried it on. I should offer an extra 200 points for the death of Palmer, alas this would contravene the rules of the Dead Pool.

Finally, a Texas man was hospitalised this week, after being hit in the head by a ricocheting bullet he had aimed at an armadillo. The man decided to  shoot the armadillo after seeing it on his property, near the east Texas town of Marietta, just before 3am on Thursday, Cass County sheriff’s officials said. He fired three shots at the armadillo. At least one rebounded and hit the man in the jaw. The man was airlifted to a nearby hospital, where his jaw was wired shut. It is not known whether the armadillo survived, but we can hope. The incident is the second this year in which a person has been injured in the southern US by a bullet ricocheting off an armadillo. In April, a Georgia man wounded his mother-in-law after he fired a pistol at an armadillo and the bullet bounced off the animal, traveled through the back door of a mobile home and struck the 74-year-old woman in the back. This, ladies and gentlemen, is why Americans should not be allowed to own guns!

On This Day

• 1776 – The signing of the United States Declaration of Independence took place.
• 1790 – The first United States Census is conducted.
• 1869 – Japan‘s samurai, farmer, artisan, merchant class system (Shinōkōshō) is abolished as part of the Meiji Restoration reforms.
• 1870 – Tower Subway, the world’s first underground tube railway, opens in London, England, United Kingdom.
• 1932 – The positron (antiparticle of the electron) is discovered by Carl D. Anderson.
• 1934 – Adolf Hitler becomes Führer of Germany following the death of President Paul von Hindenburg.
• 1937 – The Marihuana Tax Act of 1937 is passed in America, the effect of which is to render marijuana and all its by-products illegal.
• 1939 – Albert Einstein and Leo Szilard write a letter to Franklin D. Roosevelt, urging him to begin the Manhattan Project to develop a nuclear weapon.
• 1990 – Iraq invades Kuwait, eventually leading to the Gulf War.

Deaths

• 1788 – Thomas Gainsborough, English painter (b. 1727)
• 1921 – Enrico Caruso, Italian tenor (b. 1873)
• 1922 – Alexander Graham Bell, Scottish-Canadian engineer, invented the telephone (b. 1847)
• 1976 – Fritz Lang, Austrian-American director, producer, and screenwriter (b. 1890)
• 1997 – William S. Burroughs, American author and painter (b. 1914)

Last Week’s Birthdays

Sandra Bullock (51), Kate Beckinsale (42), Arnold Schwarzenegger (68), Taylor Schilling (31), Mick Jagger (72), Helen Mirren (70), Wesley Snipes (53), Lisa Kudrow (52), Jason Statham (48), Nikolaj Coster-Waldau (45), Dean Cain (49), J.K. Rowling (50), Laurence Fishburne (54), Jonathan Rhys Mayers (38), Paul Anka (74), Jean Reno (67) and Christopher Nolan (45).

Next Week peeps!

Apologies this week, a rather quick and perfunctory edition of the Dead Pool, not much has happened anyhow, so have a quick perusal and we’ll catch up for real next week.

Look Who You Could Have Had:

• Nova Pilbeam, 95, British actress (The Man Who Knew Too Much, Young and Innocent, Tudor Rose).
• Alex Rocco, 79, American actor (The Godfather, The George Carlin Show, The Facts of Life), Emmy winner (1990), cancer.
• Van Alexander, 100, American big band leader, songwriter-arranger (“A-Tisket, A-Tasket“), film and television composer (I Dream of Jeannie, Bewitched, The Donna Reed Show), heart failure.
• Josh Greenberg, 28, American technology executive, co-founder of Grooveshark.
• Wayne Carson, 72, American songwriter (“The Letter“, “Always on My Mind“, “Neon Rainbow”).
• Dieter Moebius, 71, Swiss-German electronic musician (Cluster, Harmonia, Moebius & Plank).
• Theodore Bikel, 91, Austrian-born American actor (The Defiant Ones, My Fair Lady, Fiddler on the Roof), folk singer and composer.
• E. L. Doctorow, 84, American author (Ragtime, Billy Bathgate, The March), complications from lung cancer.

In Other News

Brazil legend Pelé has been released from hospital after successfully undergoing back surgery. The 74-year-old was suffering from a trapped nerve and has had surgery to relieve pain in his back and hip at the Albert Einstein hospital in Sao Paulo. Also, South Africa’s Archbishop Desmond Tutu has returned home after a week-long treatment in hospital for an unspecified infection, his foundation said. Doctors have asked him to rest, and “we’ll be doing our best not to disappoint them,” his daughter Reverend Mpho Tutu said in a statement.

Miles Frost, the eldest son of Sir David Frost has died at the age of 31 while out jogging. Mr Frost is believed to have collapsed during a run at the family’s holiday home in Oxfordshire on Sunday. Friends said he had appeared fit and healthy and was in “great form” over the past few weeks, with no signs of any health problems. His father Sir David died of a heart attack aged 74 two years ago on board the Queen Elizabeth cruise liner. Just goes to show, being a couch potato isn’t that bad for you.

Sergio Pérez walked away unscathed from a high-speed crash in Friday’s opening practice session for the Hungarian Grand Prix. The Mexican driver suffered a rear suspension failure and lost control of his Force India on the exit of turn 11 before hitting the barriers on the opposite side of the track. Pérez’s right-front wheel then appeared to get caught underneath his Force India which flipped his car. The former McLaren driver was prompt to inform his team he was “OK” before clambering out of his car. The harrowing incident, which happened one hour into the 90-minute session, comes with the Formula One community mourning the loss of Jules Bianchi who died last week.

On This Day

• 1947 – Cold War: U.S. President Harry S. Truman signs the National Security Act of 1947 into United States law creating the Central Intelligence Agency, United States Department of Defense, United States Air Force, Joint Chiefs of Staff, and the United States National Security Council.
• 1953 – Fidel Castro leads an unsuccessful attack on the Moncada Barracks, thus beginning the Cuban Revolution. The movement took the name of the date: 26th of July Movement.
• 1971 – Apollo program: launch of Apollo 15 on the first Apollo “J-Mission“, and first use of a Lunar Roving Vehicle.

Deaths

• 1952 – Eva Perón, Argentinian actress and politician, 25th First Lady of Argentina (b. 1919)
• 1984 – Ed Gein, American murderer (b. 1906)
• 1994 – Terry Scott, English actor (b. 1927)

Last Week’s Birthdays

Jennifer Lopez (46), Prince George (2), Woody Harrelson (54), Gisele Bundchen (35), Benedict Cumberbatch (39), Monica Lewinsky (42), Slash (50), Willem Dafoe (60), Daniel Radcliffe (26), Lynda Carter (64), Anna Paquin (33), Danny Glover (69), Summer Glau (34), Kim Carnes (70), Carlos Santana (68) and Rhys Ivans (48).

Next Week peeps!

Welcome all, to a points laden newsletter! Ash, Mark and Paula each get 125 points for correctly guessing that Jules Bianchi would die! Fair play to them all, that’s a huge score for someone that wasn’t one of the Big Three!

Look Who You Could Have Had:

• Satoru Iwata, 55, Japanese game programmer (Super Smash Bros., Pokémon), president and CEO of Nintendo (since 2002), bile duct cancer.
• Aubrey Morris, 89, British actor (A Clockwork Orange, Love and Death, The Wicker Man).
• Alan Kupperberg, 62, American comic book artist (The Amazing Spider-Man, Thor, Iron Man), thymus cancer.
• Jules Bianchi, 25, French Formula One driver, head injuries sustained in a race collision.

In Other News

South Africa’s Archbishop Desmond Tutu is in “good spirits” after his admission to hospital on Tuesday for an unspecified infection, his family says. His daughter Reverend Mpho Tutu said the infection was “below the belt” but was not in his prostate, where his cancer lies dormant and was being well cared for. It is going to take a few days before he returns home, she said in Cape Town. He retired from public life in 2011 but continues to travel widely. The 83-year-old Nobel peace laureate cancelled a planned trip to Rome in December following another infection. His hospitalization comes a few days after he renewed his wedding vows to his wife Leah Tutu to mark their 60th wedding anniversary.

Pelé has undergone surgery on his back in São Paulo,  according to reports. Local media reports say the 74-year-old was suffering from a trapped nerve and has had back surgery at the Albert Einstein hospital. Poor old Pelé underwent prostate surgery at the same hospital in May. The procedure was to treat a condition that creates urinary problems because of an enlarged prostate, doctors said at the time. Tests conducted after that surgery showed there were no tumours.

George HW Bush is in “fair condition” in a hospital after falling and breaking a bone in his neck and is expected to recover from the injury without surgery, his spokesman said. The former US president, who is 91, sustained the injury during a fall at his family home in Kennebunkport, Maine, on Wednesday. Bush’s spokesman was quick to downplay concerns, tweeting that the 41st president was “fine” but likely to be placed in a neck brace. He later added that Bush’s wife, Barbara, was said to have said: “A slip and fall is not going to take out a World War II pilot.” Bush – the oldest living former US president – was hospitalised in Houston over the Christmas period last year for treatment of shortness of breath. In 2012, he spent a lengthy spell in hospital to be treated for bronchitis and other complications. Bush also has lower-body Parkinsons, which causes a loss of balance, and has used wheelchairs since at least 2011. Think I’ll disagree with Barbara!

Cheering news from Buckingham Palace. The Queen has decided to stop breeding corgis or having any more young dogs, because she’s now 88 and can’t bear to leave them behind when she dies. If that’s not a glaring admission that she feels that she’s on the way out, then I don’t know what is!! I’ll not mention the Hitler salute…

And finally, a 101-year-old woman has said she felt no fear as she broke her own world record for being the oldest abseiler, by descending 94m down the side of the Spinnaker Tower in Portsmouth. Wind and rain did not deter Doris Long, who has been honoured with an MBE for her charity fundraising, as she abseiled down the tower. She last performed the feat on her 100th birthday in May 2014. Long said she was “living in hope” to be able to repeat the challenge next year, when she will be 102.

On This Day

• 1545 – The Tudor warship Mary Rose sinks off Portsmouth; in 1982 the wreck is salvaged in one of the most complex and expensive projects in the history of maritime archaeology.
• 1843 – Brunel’s steamship the SS Great Britain is launched, becoming the first ocean-going craft with an iron hull or screw propeller and becoming the largest vessel afloat in the world.
• 1900 – The first line of the Paris Métro opens for operation.
• 1983 – The first three-dimensional reconstruction of a human head in a CT is published.

Deaths

• 2013 – Mel Smith, English actor, director, and screenwriter (b. 1952)
• 2014 – James Garner, American actor, singer, and producer (b. 1928)

Last Week’s Birthdays

Donald Sutherland (80), Brigitte Nielsen (52), Harrison Ford (73), Kirsten Bell (35), Bill Cosby (78), Diane Kruger (39), Will Farrell (48), Elizabeth McGovern (54), Vin Diesel (48), Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall (68), Forest Whitaker (54), David Hasselhoff (63), Corey Feldman (44), Phoebe Cates (52), Cheech Marin (69), Richard Branson (65), John Glenn (94), Cheryl Ladd (64), Richard Simmons (67), Patrick Stewart (75), Harry Dean Stanton (89), Jackie Earle Haley (54), Matthew Fox (49), Michael Flatley (57), Fatboy Slim (52) and Jesse Ventura (64).

Next Week peeps!

Welcome all,  we have points to award!!! Paul C. correctly guessed that Sakari Momoi would peg it, and so he has, plus he had him down as a Cert! 138 points awarded! Well done sir! Paul C. now takes the lead!

I was rather surprised no one had Omar Sharif, but you all know how cruel this game can be…

Look Who You Could Have Had:

• Diana Douglas, 92, British Bermudian-American actress (The Indian Fighter, Days of Our Lives, Planes, Trains and Automobiles), cancer.
• Amanda Peterson, 43, American actress (Can’t Buy Me Love, Explorers).
• Archduchess Dorothea of Austria, 95, Bavarian princess.
• Sakari Momoi, 112, Japanese supercentenarian, world’s oldest living man, kidney failure.
• Kathleen Snavely, 113, Irish supercentenarian, oldest ever Irish-born person.
• Jerry Weintraub, 77, American film producer (Ocean’s Eleven, Diner, The Karate Kid), chairman and CEO of United Artists, heart attacks.
• Irwin Keyes, 63, American actor (House of 1000 Corpses, The Jeffersons, The Flintstones).
• Roger Rees, 71, Welsh-American actor (Cheers, Robin Hood: Men In Tights, The West Wing), stomach cancer.
• Omar Sharif, 83, Egyptian actor (Lawrence of Arabia, Doctor Zhivago, Funny Girl), heart attack.

In Other News

Guitarist Wilko Johnson has revealed he remains clear of cancer after a pioneering and complex operation he underwent last year. The former Dr Feelgood star, who had pancreatic cancer, had a nine-hour procedure to remove a large tumour and extensive sections of his digestive system. “I still can’t believe this. They got the cancer. They got it all. I’ve been for regular check-ups. Nothing.” I was supposed to be dead, but here I am doing things like walking up the road to meet me mate for lunch. Enjoying a fry-up in the caff, looking out over the Thames Delta, watching the sun dancing on the water. Ha. Every day is filled with wonderful feelings.” Johnson, 67, had previously chosen to avoid treatment after being told he had a terminal illness when he was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer in 2013.

Former Cuban leader Fidel Castro has appeared in public for the first time in more than a month. State television showed images of Mr Castro at a meeting with cheese experts near the capital, Havana. Castro, 88, handed power to his younger brother Raul in 2006 after struggling to recover from illness and is now rarely seen in public, and secrecy about his health means his public appearances are scrutinised by the media. Personally I think he looks like he’s on borrowed time, so keep your eye on him.

Ex-dictator Efrain Rios Montt is mentally unfit to be tried again on genocide charges, Guatemala’s forensic authority declared on Tuesday. Due to cognitive deterioration the 89-year-old would not be able to defend himself against charges that he was responsible for the killings of nearly 2,000 indigenous Maya during a particularly brutal stretch of the country’s 36-year civil war, the National Forensic Science Institute determined. The institute said: “He does not have full use of his mental faculties and he is not capable of correctly understanding the charges against him.” A convenient happenstance or awesome lawyers? You decide!

One Direction star Harry Styles let his effortlessly cool exterior drop for a moment at a concert last week. During the band’s show in San Diego, USA, Harry stumbled and fell, prompting screams from concerned fans. Unfortunately the singer emerged unscathed from the tumble. Sadly, the ‘band’ will be touring the UK in September.

On This Day

• 927 – Æthelstan, King of England, secures a pledge from Constantine II of Scotland that the latter will not ally with Viking kings, beginning the process of unifying Great Britain.
• 1543 – King Henry VIII of England marries his sixth and last wife, Catherine Parr, at Hampton Court Palace.
• 1962 – The Rolling Stones perform their first concert, at the Marquee Club in London, England, United Kingdom.
• 1963 – Pauline Reade, who was 16-years-old, disappears on her way to a dance at the British Railways Club in Gorton, England, the first victim in the Moors murders.

Deaths

• 1910 – Charles Rolls, English engineer and businessman, co-founded Rolls-Royce Limited (b. 1887)
• 1973 – Lon Chaney, Jr., American actor (b. 1906)
• 1999 – Bill Owen, English actor (b. 1914)
• 2013 – Alan Whicker, Egyptian-English journalist (b. 1925)

Last Week’s Birthdays

Sofia Vergara (43), Kevin Bacon (57), Tom Hanks (59), Ringo Starr (75), Anjelica Huston (64), Sylvester Stallone (69), Courtney Love (51), O.J. Simpson (68), Fred Savage (39), Edie Falco (52), Dalai Lama (80), George W. Bush (69), Nancy Reagan (94), Kelly McGillis (58), Geoffrey Tambor (71), Huey Lewis (65), Suzanne Vega (56), RZA (46), Ned Beatty (78), Geoffrey Rush (64), Brian Dennehy (77), Richard Roundtree (73), Neil Tennant (61) and Jake LaMotta (94).

Next Week peeps!